It is a hybrid of liberal and social-democratic thinking
In the budget on March 15th Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor of the exchequer, completed the job of making good on this omission. In England working parents of children between the ages of nine months to two years old will, from 2025, get government funding for up to 30 hours of child care. That builds on an existing scheme for those between the ages of three and four. The reforms both expand the welfare state and exemplify a peculiarly British way of thinking about it.
The social-democratic type, like the one in Sweden, was characterised by universal benefits and high-quality public services that cater to rich and poor alike. State-funded child care and copious public-sector jobs helped ensure that a woman’s place was in the office rather than at home. Conservative welfare states, associated with the legacy of Otto von Bismarck, were more concerned with preserving traditional family values than squashing pay differences.
Britain is typically placed in the liberal category. But from the start it would try to combine liberalism with a degree of social democracy. William Beveridge, author of the report that became the blueprint for the post-war welfare state, wrote that there would be a guaranteed minimum “of right and without means test” but also “for voluntary action by each individual to provide more than the minimum for himself and his family”.
Mr Hunt’s expansion of child care for working parents was backed by over 70% of voters for all the major parties, according to YouGov, a polling company. An annual survey of Britain’s social mores finds that attitudes towards working parents have turned Scandinavian. In 2007 around 20% disapproved of a parent working full-time with a child under three; by 2019 that had fallen to 11%, the same figure as Sweden.
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