Incorporating ‘class’ into work–family arrangements: Insights from and for Three Worlds

Abstract

In response to feminist critics, Esping-Andersen (1999) added family to the state–market nexus by examining the degree of familialism across regimes. In the absence of the state de-familializing care, however, it is difficult to predict work–family arrangements without reference to the overall level of inequality and a family’s social location within it. Thus, levels of familialism interact with levels of economic inequality. I build on existing categorizations of how two-parent families combine work and care in European countries by adding an explicit consideration of how these patterns vary within countries by education. I utilize hierarchical clustering with data for 16 countries (2004–2010) from the Luxembourg Income Study and the European Social Survey. In some respects, refining country averages by education lends greater support to the tenets of Three Worlds, but also reveals a Southern European pattern distinguished by inequality in work–family arrangements more characteristic of liberal regimes. Findings also illustrate how countries that polarize between dual full-time and male breadwinner families largely polarize by education.