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Family-policy variation in Europe is still enormous and there is very limited knowledge about the publics´ attitudes toward family-policy measures in a comparative perspective. This book addresses this research gap by combing a profound analysis of existing family-policy measures with a thorough analysis of public attitudes. Based on institutional theory, which argues that institutions structure the processes of orientation, the empirical analyses shed light on the relationship between the current family-policy setup, the social context, and public attitudes toward particular family-policy measures in 12 countries of the European Union. The results demonstrate that the social context needs to be taken into account in order to improve our understanding of attitudinal variation among different countries and family-policy contexts. Moreover, this book points out that only few patterns of social polarization are quasi universal whereas many others are specific to individual countries or certain groups of countries.

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_Introduction.- Theoretical background and literature review.- Family policies in Europe - a cluster analysis.- Family policies and public opinion.- Family policy, contextual features, and public opinion.- Social cleavages within European welfare states.- Summary and discussion.

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Monika Mischke holds a PhD in sociology from the University of Mannheim and is currently working as a postdoctoral research fellow and lecturer at Siegen University.

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