The Oxford Handbook of Family Policy: A Life-course Perspective

The Handbook examines contemporary trends and issues in the formation of families over the different stages of the life cycle and how they interact with family-oriented social policies of modern welfare states, mainly in the OECD countries of Western Europe, East Asia and the U.S. Focusing largely on family needs in the early stages of the life course, the conventional package of policies tends to emphasize programs and benefits clustered around measures to support marriage, childbearing, care, the reconciliation of employment and childcare during the preschool years. Drawing on a multidisciplinary group of experts from many countries, this book extends the conventional perspective on family policy by also looking at later phases of the family life course. In taking a life course perspective, this Handbook extends the purview to encompass five main stages of family life. These are (1) cohabitation; (2) marriage and starting a family; (3) the early years of parenting, care and employment; (4) the period of transitions and later life, not only the empty nest, but also adversities that lead to family breakdown; and (5) aging and intergenerational supports.

Mary Daly is Professor of Sociology and Social Policy at the Department and a Fellow of Green Templeton College, University of Oxford. She is an elected fellow of the British Academy and is also a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences and a Member of the Royal Irish Academy. An expert in comparative welfare state studies, she has published many books and articles on topics such as gender and social policy, family policy, child wellbeing, long-term care, poverty and welfare. She is a former editor of the journal Social Politics and an advisory board member of this and a number of other journals. Mary Daly's research has been supported by a wide range of funders, including the Economic and Social Research Council, the EU, Council of Europe, the ILO, UN, UN Women and UNICEF. She has served on numerous national and international advisory committees. She is the founder of the Care Initiative at Green Templeton College Oxford

Birgit Pfau-Effinger is Research Professor for Sociology of Cultural and Institutional Change at the University of Hamburg. She was visiting professor at Universities in Aalborg, Tampere and Barcelona, and she delivered the Friedlander Lecture at the University of California, Berkeley. She has published 19 books and numerous articles in leading international journals, like Advances in Climate Change Research, Agriculture and Human Values, American Behavioral Scientist, British Journal of Industrial Relations, British Journal of Sociology, Environment & Planning A, Journal of European Social Policy, Journal of Social Policy, and Work, Employment & Society, and numerous articles in edited volumes. Her article in Work, Employment and Society (WES) was distinguished in 2012 as “Favorite WES article of the last 25 years” by the BSA, the Editors of WES, and SAGE. She was (co-) leader of research projects of the EU and DFG, and of several international research programs, and she is member of the Board of ESPAnet.

Neil Gilbert is Chernin Professor of Social Welfare at U.C. Berkeley. Gilbert was awarded two Senior Fulbright Research Fellowships to study European Social Policy at the London School of Economics, the National Institute of Social Work and the University of Stockholm. He has served as a visiting Professor at McGill University and Hamburg University and delivered the Sidney Ball Lecture at Oxford University. Gilbert was Acting Dean of Berkeley Social Welfare from 1994-96. He was Vice Chair and Chair of the Berkeley Senate Faculty's Graduate Council. His publications include 15 books and 18 edited volumes and over 140 articles that have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The Public Interest, Society, Commentary, and leading academic journals. Several of his books have been translated into Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Italian and widely reviewed in venues such as the New York Times, the New York Review of Books, The New Republic, the Wall Street Journal, and the Atlantic. He served on the Board of Trustees of the Head-Royce School and is chairman of the Board of Seneca Center. In 1987, he was awarded the University of Pittsburgh Bicentennial Medallion of Distinction. In 2000 he was voted Teacher of the Year at Berkeley Social Welfare.

Douglas Besharov is a Professor of Public Policy and Director of the Welfare Reform Academy and its Center for International Policy Exchanges at the University of Maryland. Professor Besharov has served as President of the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management (APPAM), and was the founding director of the U.S. National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect. His best-known book is Recognizing Child Abuse: A Guide for the Concerned, a book designed to help professionals and laypersons identify and report suspected child abuse. His other publications include more than twenty books and 250 articles. He has contributed to The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post.