Mothers, Families, or Children? Family Policy in Poland, Hungary and Romania 1945-2020. Book presentation

Mothers, Families, or Children? Family Policy in Poland, Hungary and Romania 1945-2020 by Tomasz Inglot, Dorottya Szikra, and Cristina Raț (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 reveal mechanisms that help preserve core family policy clusters while allowing reform in contingent ones in each country.