NJSR NORDIC JOURNAL of SOCIAL RESEARCH www.nordicjsr.net NJSR – Nordic Journal of Social Research 2011 – Special Issue Guest Editorial Welfare-state change, the strengthening of economic principles, and new tensions in relation to care Birgit Pfau-Effinger Institut für Soziologie University of Hamburg Email: pfau-effinger@wiso.uni-hamburg.de Tine Rostgaard SFI – The Danish National Centre for Social Research Email: TR@sfi.dk Outline of the concept of the special issue Changes in family structures, a massive increase in labour-market participation of women, and an ageing population have led to changes in the traditional organization of care work. European governments are being forced to find new solutions for managing what is called „the emerging care deficit‟. This volume of the NJSF addresses the new forms of care emerging across European countries. Care work is still to a substantial degree provided in private households in unpaid or paid informal forms of care work, but many welfare states in Europe have extended financial support and public provisions in the field of childcare and elderly care, and have established new social rights for care recipients (Anttonen & Sipilä 2005; Kröger & Sipilä 2005; Rostgaard 2002). Pay for family care in the framework of parental-leave schemes and elderly care has been introduced (Pfau-Effinger 2007). This measure implies that care work produced within the private household by family members or relatives is to an increasing extent organized as semi-formal care. Such policies have contributed to diminishing the tensions between family and employment that had been developing as a consequence of the increase in labour-force participation rates of women. However, in many European countries, these tensions between care responsibility and employment still exist. This restructuring of the organization of care work has overlapped with another major change in European welfare states, namely, the substantial modification of the main principle of the provision of care. As long as care was provided in the family, its production was based on principles of mutual support. However, this notion of family care was contested beginning in the 1970s. Feminists argued that care provided in the family excluded women – the main providers of family care – from the labour market and social security