European Family Policy Practice From The Perspective Of Welfare Pluralism And The Construction Of China 's Developmental Family Policy In The Future

Welfare pluralism rose as a reflection on the traditional welfare states, scholars have enriched the meanings of welfare pluralism by proposing several kinds of classification. Meanwhile family function is weakening, families cannot fully caring for family members, the researches of family and family policy become the focus of attention. The researches of family policy contain three parts:analysis of the concept of family policy, comparison of family policy in different countries and the research of one country’s family policy.This article combines welfare pluralism with family policy, presenting the change and development of European family policies in view of time, seizing the meanings of family policy through explanatory framework and characteristics, concluding four changes of European family policy in recent twenty years:individualism of family policy, de-institutionalization of traditional families, the balance of work and family, the combination of privation and publication. According to Esping-Andersen’s typology of welfare states system, we divide European countries to three kinds in the area of family policy:high welfare states, assisted welfare states and residual welfare states. By comparing family policies’practice of three kinds of European welfare states in view of space, experience can be concluded to inspire the development of family policy in future China:the government provides welfare and at the same time, strengthen the market, community and social organizations so as to support the family and structure pluralistic developmental family policy.With the combination of analyzing current family policy in China, particularly in Shanghai, and the result of survey in Shanghai, concluding the status and defection of family policy practice in China. This article makes some recommendations to structure pluralistic developmental family policy in future China against current family policy’s recessive and residual characteristics:establishing the department to particularly manage the affairs about families, bringing the view of family into the making of policies, making family policy to be dominant. At the same time, China should structure the supporting network between government, market, family, community and social organization and shape the developmental family policy system.