A quintessential mixed economy?

Abstract

This chapter explores how the problem of illegitimate children was treated in Switzerland when the new Civil Code was implemented through the prism of collaboration between state intervention and private initiative. Their collaboration was operated, thanks to a common representation of the public supported: the single mother and her child, seen as victims of the double moral standard, should be supported and not stigmatized. However, this legal framework remained deeply conservative, as it maintained the inequality of rights between legitimate and illegitimate children. The case study of French-speaking Switzerland shows how philanthropic actors collaborated with public services to implement the new legal provisions and to co-produce new ones such as the practice of adoption of illegitimate children. The chapter underlines the ambiguous effects of a procedure which facilitated the resolution of the problems of care for illegitimate children, but may also have given rise to coercive practices towards single mothers in vulnerable situations. The best interests of the child may not have weighed as heavily in adoption decisions as the speedy resolution of the situations of which these actors were responsible.