Children and parents have become a focus of debates on 'new social risks' in European welfare states. Policymaking elites have converged in defining such risks, and they have outlined new forms of parenting support to better safeguard children and activate their potential. Increasingly, parents are suspected of falling short of public expectations. Contributors to this special issue scrutinize this shift towards parenting as performance and analyse recent forms of parenting support.

This special issue of the Zeitschrift fur Familienforschung is based on policy reports for a comparative project that investigated the interaction between changing family forms, changing employment patterns, and family policies in the Nordic Countries (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Sweden, and Norway), The Netherlands, the United Kingdom and G- many. The project was financed by the Nordic Council of Ministers' Welfare Research Programme (2002-2005). Jonathan Bradshaw, Professor of Social Policy, University of York, UK, and Aksel Hatland, Research Director, NOVA, Oslo, Norway, chaired the p- ject. The project team included senior national experts and younger researchers from each country in the study. These were: National experts Peter Abrahamson: Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Copenhagen, Denmark Ulla Bjornberg: Professor of Sociology, Goteborg University, Sweden Dr. Gudny Bjork Eydal: Lecturer in Social Work and Sociology, University of Reykjavik, Iceland Katja Forssen: Professor of Social Work, University of Turku, Finland Trudie Knijn: Professor of Social Science, Utrecht University, The Netherlands Stefan Olafsson: Professor of Sociology, University of Reykjavik, Iceland Ilona Ostner: Professor of Social Policy, University of Gottingen, Germany Dr. Anne Skevik: Senior Researcher, NOVA, Oslo, Norway Veli-Matti Ritakallio: Professor of Social Policy, University of Turku, Finland Young researchers Lillemor Dahlgren: Research Assistant, Dept. of Sociology, Goteborg University, Sweden Dr. Naomi Finch: Research Fellow, Social Policy Research Unit, University of York, UK Anne-Mari Jaakola: Doctoral Student, Dept.

Dieser Band enthalt Analysen des sozialstrukturellen Wandels fur die Bundesrepublik Deutschland in der Nachkriegszeit, insbesondere nach der deutschen Vereinigung mit Blick auf zukunftige, beispielsweise europaische und globale Herausforderungen."

Das Buch thematisiert den Wandel vom Ernahrermodell zum "Adult Worker Model." Wie reagiert die Sozialpolitik auf Veranderungen im Geschlechterverhaltnis? Dieser Frage wird in konzeptionellen und empirisch vergleichenden Beitragen nachgegangen."