Book presentation:
Mothers, Families, or Children? Family Policy in Poland, Hungary and Romania 1945-2020 (Pittsburgh University Press, 2022) by Tomasz Inglot, Dorottya Szikra, and Cristina Raț
Host: Paul Teodor Hărăguș, associate professor and Dean of the Faculty of Sociology and Social Work, Babeș-Bolyai University
Discussants:
Livia Popescu, retired professor of social policy at the Faculty of Sociology and Social Work, Babeș-Bolyai University
Borbála Kovács, lecturer at the Faculty of Political, Administrative, and Communication Sciences, Babeș-Bolyai University
Presenters:
The book will be presented by Dorottya Szikra and Cristina Raț (unfortunately Tomasz Inglot could not attend).
About the book:
Mothers, Families, or Children? Family Policy in Poland, Hungary and Romania 1945-2020 (Pittsburgh University Press, 2022 –
https://upittpress.org/books/9780822947035/) offers a comparative-historical study of family policies in three Central and Eastern European countries from 1945 until the eve of the global pandemic in 2020. The book highlights the emergence, consolidation, and perseverance of distinct orientations of family policies: “mother-orientation” in Poland, “family orientation” in Hungary, and “child-orientation” in Romania. It uses a new theoretical framework to identify core and contingent clusters of benefits and services in each country and trace their development across time and under different political regimes, before and after 1989. It also examines and compares policy continuity and change with special attention to institutions, ideas, and actors involved in decision making and reform. As family policies continue to evolve in the era of European Union membership and new governmental and societal actors emerge, this study reveals mechanisms that help preserve core family policy clusters while allowing reform in contingent ones in each country.
About the authors:
Tomasz Inglot is professor of political science, distinguished faculty scholar, and director of the International Relations Program in the Department of Government at Minnesota State University–Mankato. He is the author of the award-winning book Welfare States in East-Central Europe, 1919–2004.
Dorottya Szikra is senior researcher at the Centre for Social Sciences, Budapest, and visiting professor at the Department of Gender Studies and the Department of Political Science, Central European University in Vienna.
Cristina Raț is lecturer in the Sociology Department of Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj, Romania, where she teaches courses on class inequality and social policies.
Time & venue:
8th of June, 6 p.m., room 7, Dostoievski (formely Plugarilor) street No. 34
