Family Life and Individual Welfare in Postwar Europe. Britain and Italy Compared

Taking Britain and Italy as comparative cases, the author explores the extent to which dominant notions of family life differed in postwar Britain and Italy and the implications this had on the development of family policy in these two countries.The book demonstrates that the definition of what constitutes a family is both the result of social and cultural transformations and the outcome of specific political processes. Looking at the interplay of contingent political factors and long-term cultural legacies, the book discusses the origin of different understandings of the nature and role of the family and of the different approaches to its regulation. The regulation of family life is considered within the book as a means of pursuing actual political interests as well as of fostering particular values or visions of society. The book argues that in the post-war period as now, the family acted as a catalyst for a range of anxieties and was used as a privileged instrument of political propaganda.