1. CES Glasgow
12-14 July 2017
The impact of social investment perspectives on gender equality: critical review of the EU childcare strategy
Annick Masselot
Associate Professor in Law, University of Canterbury, NZ

2. From social welfare to social investment approaches
“… going from a welfare state that is a ‘nurse’ to one that is an ‘investor’”
Palier 2008:5-6 (our translation)

3. Social investment as a victory for feminism?
“Gender awareness is a distinctive feature” of social investment discourse. (Molyneux 2006)

4. The EU Social Investment Policy 2013-2017
Social Investment Package (SIP)
Commission Recommendation, Investing in children: breaking the cycle of disadvantage COM(2013) 778
support parents' access to the labour market and make sure that work 'pays' for them
improve access to affordable early childhood education and care services
step up access to quality services that are essential to children's outcomes – improve access to early childhood education and care including for children under 3, eliminate school segregation, enhance access to health, housing, social services
New Start to Support Work-Life Balance for Parents and Carers
Proposal for a Directive on the EU Parliament and the Council on Work Life Balance for Parents and Carers COM (2017) 253 final.
Paid paternity leave
Paid parental leave
Carer’s leave
Right to request flexible working arrangements

5. Families must be productive

6. Child centred policy

7. Empowering women?

8. The gender impacts of the Social Investment Package
A unidimensional perspective that hides structural inequalities between women and men and between women
Gender awareness ≠ gender equality
Economic approach rather than a capacity approach
Devaluation of care and defamilisation of women and children relationships
The child-mother nexus and return of “bad mothers”