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Covering work practices, work-life balance, childcare, poverty, domestic violence, social inclusion, immigration and disability, this book explores family policies in different countries, including challenges to developing, implementing and evaluating them.

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Family policy holds a particular status in the quest for a more equitable world as it intersects the rights of women, children, and workers. But despite local and global efforts and initiatives, the state of family policy in different areas of the world varies widely.

Through a cross-section of countries on six continents, Family Policies Across the Globe offers the current state of the laws concerning family life, structure, and services, providing historical, cultural, and socioeconomic context. Lucidly written chapters analyze key aspects of family definition, marriage, child well-being, work/family balance, and family assistance, reviewing underlying social issues and controversies as they exist in each country. Details of challenges to implementation and methods of evaluating policy outcomes bring practical realities into sharp focus, and each chapter concludes with recommendations for improvement at the research, service, and governmental levels. The result is an important comparative look at how governments support families, and how societies perceive themselves as they evolve. Among the issues covered:

Sierra Leone: toward sustainable family policies.
Russia: folkways versus state-ways.
Japan: policy responses to a declining population.
Australia: reform, revolutions, and lingering effects.
Canada: a patchwork policy.
Colombia : a focus on policies for vulnerable families.
Researchers
, professors and graduate students in the fields of social policy, child and family studies, psychology, sociology, and social work will find in Family Policies Across the Globe a reference that will grow in importance as world events continue to develop.

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Introduction.- Family Policies across the Globe: Development, Implementation and Assessment.- II. Family Policies in Africa.- Toward Sustainable Family Policies in Sierra Leone: Developments and Recommendations.- Public Policy and Families in Kenya.- Child and Family - focused Policy in Botswana.- Family Policy in South Africa.- III. Europe.- Family Policies in Norway Families and Family Policies in Sweden.- Family Policies -The Case of Iceland.- Family Policy in Ireland.- Family Policy in Germany.- Family Patterns of Change in Italy: Challenges, Conflicts, Policies and Practices.- Family Policies in Spain.- Family Policies in Portugal.- Family Policies in Moldova.- Family Policy in Russia: Folkways versus State-ways Revisited.- For Whose Sake Is It Anyway? Evaluation of Explicit Family Policies in Turkey.- IV. Family Policies in Asia.- Family Policy in China: A Snapshot of 1950-2010.- Family Policy in Taiwan: Development, Implementation, and Assessment.- Family in India: Problems and Policies.- Family policy in South Korea : Development , Implementation and Evaluation.- Policy Responses to Population Declining Society: Development and Challenges of Family Policies in Japan.- V. Australia.- Reform, Revolution and Lingering Effects: Family Policies in Australia.VI. North America.- Canada´s Patchwork Policy: Family Policy in the Canadian Context.- Romantic/Marit
al, Parental and Familial Relationship Policies in the United States.- Families and Policies in Mexico.- The Commonwealth Caribbean: Family Policy in the Caribbean Community.- South America.- Family Policy in Colombia : A Focus on Policies for Vulnerable Families.- Family Policies in Ecuador: A Call for Explicit Family Policies.- Family Policies in Brazil.

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