A Comparative Analysis of the Family Policy and its Results in European Countries: Lessons for Russia

There is a comparative analysis of the family policy of the four European countries - France, Germany, Great Britain and Slovakia in this paper. The main purpose of the analysis is to identify the specifics of Slovakia's family policy in the context of developed countries, and to formulate proposals and recommendations for Russia. We used such indicators as the views and attitude of governments to family and fertility problems, gender differences, maternity and parental leave, public spending on family benefits and children. Russia is not considered in this study because of the lack of data consistent with a single methodology (the main source of data is the OECD Family Database). Slovakia, as a country in Eastern Europe, was chosen as a similar replacement for Russia. In the course of the work, we considered the evolution of the family policy of Russia and European countries in the post-war period, as well as the family policy regimes that exist in the theory of typology. A review of the views and attitudes of the governments of the countries in question to family and fertility problems is presented. A comparative analysis of the family policy of European countries was carried out based on the above indicators. For many reasons (the political regime, the economic situation, the employment market situation, migration, etc.), the evolution of family policy differs in the European countries. In Slovakia, there is a low birth rate, a high gender gap in wages, a low level of women's employment, a low level of public expenditure on family benefits and a low percentage of childcare payments. This is the result of the lack of reforms in family policy. Based on the analysis, proposals and recommendations were formulated to modernize Russia's family policy.