Canadian family policies : cross-national comparisons / Maureen Baker.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Bringing together research and statistics from the fields of demography, political science, economics, sociology, women's studies, and social policy, this rich, multidisciplinary study provides a unique resource for anyone interested in Canadian family policy.

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CHOICE Review

Baker (McGill Univ.), a former senior researcher for the Canadian Library of Parliament, focuses on Canadian family welfare experience while evaluating the relative success of family policies in seven European countries and Australia. Because family welfare policy involves state vision and implementation, she attempts to explain how programs are developed and delivered, and the philosophical differences that underlie their execution. Further, she concentrates on policies that aim to redress poverty and maintain the ability of parents to work. On the whole, Baker's study is descriptive rather than prescriptive, but explanation of policy differences and evaluation of their success within quite different national contexts is clearly presented in introductory and concluding chapters. In between, Baker describes policies such as child allowances and government taxation, maternity and parental leave practices, child care in the family and by institutional provision, divorce law, child custody and support, and the environmental factors that influence policy provision. This ambitious but valuable and successful study has many more strengths than weaknesses. Despite a fuzziness about political terms such as "left-wing," "liberal," and "conservative" approaches to welfare, and sketchy analysis of why state policy came to exist as it has in the nations studied, her conclusion that Canada has been less than generous in state family welfare provision by comparison with European nations such as Sweden and France is clear. Upper-division undergraduates and above. M. J. Moore Appalachian State University