It is widely accepted that the welfare settlement after the second world war was based on the assumption that there would be stable families and full-time work for men. Given the increased insecurity and flexibility of the labour market, the growth in women's employment and the rapid pace of family change in the late 20th century - divorce up threefold and the proportion of children born outside marriage up fourfold in one generation - it is no wonder that the principles underpinning the welfare state are in question.
The old welfare model assumed that men would be breadwinners and women would take responsibility for the care of young and old in the family. While the model never wholly accorded with reality, it acted as a powerful prescriptive model reflected in public and private law.
At the beginning of the 21st century, government's assumptions have changed dramatically. The drive of "welfare-to-work", begun by the Conservatives and developed by Labour, assumes an "adult worker model family". All adults who are capable will be in the labour market. But how far does the model fit social reality? And what about unpaid care work?
The old male breadwinner model has certainly eroded. According to the general household survey, 81% of men and 62% of women aged 16-64 were economically active in 1975. By 1996, this figure was 70% for both sexes. Married women are just as likely to be employed as non-married women. In contrast, men's labour market participation has fallen; indeed the contribution by men to family income fell more than 10 percentage points between 1979-81 and 1989-91.
However, the vast majority of the post-1945 increase in married women's employment is accounted for by part-time employment in the service of the welfare state (much of it low paid); 44% of women workers were part-time in 1998 and almost a quarter work "short part-time" - under 20 hours a week. So while families supported by a single male breadwinner are now undoubtedly in a minority, the division of paid work in dual earner households takes a variety of forms. Dual career couples are in fact relatively rare. The norm in Britain, as in many European countries, has become the more or less one-and-a-half-earner household.
Government has been stressing the obligation to engage in paid work. But there is also an obligation to care and these two things must be balanced. The Labour government has not neglected the issue of care work. The national child care strategy is a first for a country that has consistently occupied a place near the bottom of the European child care league. The child care tax credit embodied in the working families tax credit scheme is also an important initiative in a country where the issue of reconciling work and family responsibilities has been historically ignored. Further, there is the new strategy for carers and proposals for second pension credits for those caring for young children or adults.
However, all these positive initiatives are relatively small alongside the major programmes to get people into employment: the New Deal and the working families tax credit. There is no coherent policy on the care of dependants, young and old, to match the policy on paid work.
The problems of moving towards a full adult worker model are fourfold. Unpaid care work is unequally shared between men and women, which has substantial implications for women's position in the labour market. Given the lack of good quality affordable care in the formal sector (public and private), many women have little option but to continue to provide it. A significant number of female carers want to feel that it is "right" to prioritise care over paid work. Women's low pay, especially in care-related jobs, means that full individualisation is hard to achieve, on the basis of long part-time or even full-time work.
Just as policy assumptions based on a male breadwinner model disadvantaged women in particular, so assumptions based on an adult worker model are likely to do so. This does not mean that policy should swing back to a more traditional family model. Given the likelihood that all adults will have to rely more on self-provision in future, not least in respect of pensions, it is important that as many adults as possible are able to earn. However, it is important that government pays attention to the context for the promotion of a new adult worker model. Without access to affordable, good quality support for care, women in particular may resist the injunction to enter the labour market on more than a short part-time basis. Or they will enter and risk adverse effects on dependants.
There are two examples of a long-standing adult worker model. In the US, the obligation to enter the labour market is embedded in a residual welfare system that often borders on the punitive. The US has extremely high rates of child poverty and high rates of juvenile imprisonment. Sweden and Denmark also operate an adult worker model, supported by an extensive range of care entitlements in respect of children and older people. Child poverty rates are the lowest in OECD countries and juvenile crime rates low.
These contrasting experiences show there are policy choices. Taking care work seriously should be a priority and we need to share unpaid work between men and women more fairly. Policies that would promote the sharing of care include: paid parental leave, with a portion set aside for use by men (the so-called "daddy month" in the Scandinavian countries; a right to a shorter working day (as in Scandinavia) or a shorter working week (as in the Netherlands) for parents with small children; and greater provision of good quality child care and elder care.
On the care side, jobs need to attract a living wage and certainly pay no less than working the checkout at Tesco; and the social security system needs to take account of people's lifetime labour market experience, particularly in respect of pension guarantees, so that carers do not suffer further consequences of low-paid work and periods with no pay.
It is difficult to work full time and care for dependants. Something has to give. Policy-makers are concerned about the family and about parenting. They are concerned about work. It is strange that they are so little preoccupied with policies on care.
Jane Lewis is Barnett professor of social policy at Oxford University. This is based on a paper she presented on Monday as part of the Social Policy Association's contribution to the British Association for the Advancement of Science's festival of science in London
