Divorce, family changes and public policies

The family is a place of care, but also is a space of gender relations, relations between generations and finally is one of the places of citizenship construction. In recent years there have been changes in the social definition of the definition and legal legitimacy of the family. They are changing power relations within families and also changing gender roles. These changes have put into crisis the family care model, especially in European Mediterranean countries that have a familist welfare regime (where there is a family resources overexploitation, especially among the women). But, on the other hand, can also be an opportunity to change the traditional model in which women assume the bulk of care within the home. It is obvious the interaction between family and welfare regimes. Divorce is one of the processes that introduce more changes in family structures. The intensity with which the divorce is extending to all social classes arises as a challenge for family public policies: it is a new social risk source.

This paper shows a qualitative study based on in-depth interviews with men and women living in Spain who have experienced a divorce with at least one child. We relate perceptions and facts from the family trajectories, focusing in the transformation of families after the disruption and also the care into the families to identify sources of informal support and institutional impact. Then, we compare the findings with family public policies. The results provide information on family processes and their relationship with the processes of social vulnerability and the potential impact of policies.