The practice of many European Union countries show that family policy can serve not only as an instrument of support for people raising their children or coping with the consequences of demographic crisis, but also as an efficient tool to introduce gender equality and provide an answer to the economic challenges of the modern world. It is a systematic activity guided by the pragmatic goal of investing in the development of society as a whole and building social capital. This kind of activity should be indispensable element of adjusting to globalization processes. Family policy should be consistent with the aims and aspirations of diverse family models within any given society and encompass transformations of a modern family model which becomes often a form of different partner relationships.

The focus of the September 20, 2007, conference, organized by the Warsaw Office of the Heinrich Böll Foundation and the Network of East-West Women/NEWW-Polska, was a debate on different models of modern family policy in the EU states. The starting point of the discussion was a presentation of changes to family models resulting from the transformation of gender roles and the activities of emancipatory movements.

Can family policy be an efficient tool for gender equality? What are some examples of good practices in other European countries in this respect? Can Europe, in spite of the EU softening its approach towards social policy, develop common family policy based on uniform standards? These and other issues were raised by guest-speakers invited to take part in two discussion panels Different states, different models? and Another Family?: Joanna Kluzik-Rostkowska (Minister of Labour and Social Policy), Michaela Marksova-Tominova (Chairwoman of the Association for Equal Opportunities, Czech Republic), prof. Irena Wóycicka (the Gdansk Institute for Market Economics), Eberhard Schäfer (Papa Institute, Berlin) and publicists: Kinga Dunin, Edwin Bendyk and Adam Leszczyński.

The conference was organized as part of the project “Fit for Gender Mainstreaming – Gender-Sensitive Transcending of Borders between East and West”.

More in the conference agenda.