This analysis of the family-labor market policies of three European
countries—Sweden, the former East Germany, and the former West
Germany—contends that the major influences on such policies are the
labor needs of the economic system; state-promoted notions of equality
of opportunity versus equality of result; and public attitudes toward
gender, motherhood, and equality. It demonstrates the contradiction
inherent in policies that seek both to protect mothers and to promote
equality in the workforce and the need to consider equality of result,
as well as equality of opportunity, as a potential policy goal.
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