“Post-Feminist” Era of Social Investment and Territorial Welfare? Exploring the Issue Salience and Policy Framing of Child Care in U.K. Elections 1983-2011

Paul Chaney

doi:10.1177/2158244015574299

Abstract

Earlier work has tended to overlook the formative origins of child care policy in liberal democracies. Accordingly, this study examines mandate-seeking and parties’ envisioning of child care with reference to issue salience and policy framing in party manifestos in U.K. Westminster and regional elections. It reveals a significant increase in issue salience following its emergence as a manifesto issue in the 1980s, thereby confirming it as part of the wider rise of “valence politics.” The framing data reveal that a “post-feminist” discourse of “social investment” has generally displaced the political framing of child care as a gender equality issue. It is argued that this is inherently problematic and reflects parties’ failure to address ongoing gender inequality in the labor market. Notably, the data also illustrate the way devolution is leading to the territorialization of child care in the United Kingdom—no longer solely mandated in Westminster elections, policy is now contingent on the discursive practices of regional party politics and shaped by local socio-economic factors.

Highlights

Effective child care policy is integral to overcoming gender segregation in the labor market and is an internationally held policy goal in governments’ pursuit of economic growth
Manifestos serve multitude of functions: (a) They provide substantive details of future government parties’ policies, (b) they show how parties compare in the priority they attach to child care, (c) electoral discourse reveals areas of inter-party conflict and consensus, and (d) such a focus provides insights into how policy is shaped by party ideology and contingent on local socioeconomic and political factors
The present findings highlight the discursive underpinnings of the late-20th-century rise in child care policy in the United Kingdom

Summary

Introduction

Effective child care policy is integral to overcoming gender segregation in the labor market and is an internationally held policy goal in governments’ pursuit of economic growth (cf. Picchio, 1992; Seguino, 2000; Tzannatos, 1999). Manifestos serve multitude of functions: (a) They provide substantive details of future government (and opposition) parties’ policies, (b) they show how parties compare in the priority they attach to child care, (c) electoral discourse reveals areas of inter-party conflict and consensus, and (d) such a focus provides insights into how policy is shaped by party ideology and contingent on local socioeconomic and political factors. By focusing on statewide and regional elections, this study provides a transferable methodology that gives further insights into the impact of multi-level governance on child care policy making This approach is appropriate, because “devolution”—or move to quasi-federalism in the United Kingdom (Gamble, 2006)—is part of the wider international trend of state restructuring (Doornbos, 2006). Under the revised governance structures, the Scottish, Welsh, and Northern Irish governments have responsibility for many aspects of state child care policy in their territories (for a discussion of the policy responsibilities of the devolved legislatures and governments, see, for example, Birrell, 2008)

Method

Findings

Discussion