Julia O'Connor

• University of Ulster

The European Union (EU) was an influential voice in advocating the adoption of gender mainstreaming by the 4th United Nations World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995. Since then gender mainstreaming has become a central policy plank of gender justice globally, but progress has been variable and modest. This paper examines the unfolding of gend...

ColinHay and DanielWincott (2012), The Political Economy of European Welfare Capitalism. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. £24.99, pp. 263, pbk - Volume 42 Issue 4 - JULIA S. O'CONNOR

The 1998 Belfast Agreement seemed to promise women in Northern Ireland equality. This article examines the extent to which that promise has been met by exploring abortion rights in the region. It situates abortion within a citizens’ rights framework. The article explores the interconnectedness of civil, political and social rights and the implicati...

Non-standard employment (NSE) has been recognized for several decades as a phenomenon worthy of analysis by social scientists from a range of disciplinary backgrounds as discussed by Barbier and Koch in this volume. It includes several forms of employment including part-time, fixed-term contracts, agency work and self-employment, some of which are...

The focus of the article is on organizational reform measures in public health in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania from 1992 to 2005 and the associated changes in population health. The study draws on published reports and analyses official statistics over time and cross-nationally. Changes in population health are measured by indicators of population...

The objective of this article is to compare the development of health policies in three Baltic countries, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania in the period from 1992 to 2004 and reflect on whether key dimensions of these policies are developing in parallel, diverging or even converging in some respects. The paper identifies the similarity in the overall...

"Culture and Welfare State" provides comparative studies in the interplay between cultural factors and welfare policies. Starting with an analysis of the historical and cultural foundations of Western-European welfare states, reflected in the competing ideologies of liberalism, conservatism and socialism, the book goes on to compare the Western-Eur...

This paper examines changes in welfare effort from 1960 to 1980 and two intervening periods. Analysis of data on 17 OECD countries indicates that there is increasing divergence in welfare effort, as reflected in expenditure and policy orientation, although this statement masks important nuances relating to measures of welfare effort and time period...

This paper traces the development of the European Social Model from the recognition of the right to equal pay for men and women in the Treaty of Rome to agreement of a Social Policy Agenda in 2000 and the adoption of an open method of coordination (OMC) in employment (1997), social inclusion (2000) and pensions (2002). The associated framework of s...

This paper focuses on the development of an employment anchored social policy framework within the European Union and explores how changing governance structures within the EU may influence national policy in this area. National Action Plans on Employment and Social Inclusion are the key pillars of the EU employment anchored social policy framework...

English Convergence towards the European Community average on key economic dimensions was the dominant objective of Ireland’s entry into the Community in 1973 and is now central to the admission aspirations of the applicant countries. This article outlines key aspects of Ireland’s economic convergence and the associated policy choices. It examines...

The 1990s have seen dramatic restructuring of state social provision in the US, the UK, Canada and Australia. This has occurred largely because of the rise of market liberalism, which challenges the role of the state. This important book examines the impact of changes in social policy regimes on gender roles and relations. Structured thematically a...

Women and the Welfare State: Challenges and ChangeEvansPatricia M. and WekerleGerda R., eds. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997, pp. xii, 329 - Volume 31 Issue 4 - Julia S. O'Connor

The objective of this paper is to integrate class, citizenship and gender in a comparative approach to the analysis of welfare state regimes. I argue that the incorporation of gender into the analysis entails a reassessment of the conventional conception of citizenship, a broadening of conventional definitions of political mobilization and particip...

J'examine dans cet article les politiques sociales canadiennes pour la période 1960–1983, à lumière des expériences d'autres pays. Les politiques considérées se lisent sur quatre dimensions: dé-marchandisation, solidarité, redistribution et plein emploi. Au regard des dépenses d'autres pays membres de l***'OCDE, les dépenses gouvernementales de con...

In this paper some of the reasons for inconsistent findings on the determinants of welfare expenditure and outcome in the advanced capitalist countries are examined. Particular attention is paid to the work of Harold Wilensky and John Stephens on the grounds that their research illustrates some key methodological and theoretical differences in this...

There is a significant literature to support the proposition that the European Union encompasses at least three and possibly four welfare regimes that despite increasing reference to the European Social Model have maintained their distinctiveness not only in welfare effort but in welfare outcome. This paper traces the development of the European So...