ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the trends in policies on the unpaid work of caring, which are important determinants of women’s position in the labour market. It looks at the issue of lone mothers, whose position highlights the problem of how to combine paid and unpaid work. The chapter focuses on the relationship between unpaid work in the family and paid work in the labour market. The nature of European labour markets is changing rapidly. In both Spain and Britain there has been considerable “flexibilisation.” Women have always tended to occupy more than their fair share of precarious jobs, which often carry little by way of social entitlements. The problem of reconciling paid and unpaid work is particularly acute in the case of lone mothers, who form an increasing proportion of European households. In the post-war history of the welfare state, women’s responsibility for unpaid care work has remained remarkably constant, while their involvement in paid labour has increased dramatically.
