This comprehensive and innovative book demonstrates the dynamics of welfare policies in different socioeconomic settings by providing comparative analyses of the Baltic and Nordic welfare state systems. The book contributes to finding and reflecting upon innovative solutions to common challenges in European welfare states. Challenging conventional welfare state research, the authors compare the Nordic countries with the welfare states of the market-oriented democracies of the Baltic area, discussing welfare state theories, family policy regimes and welfare state models. Top international contributors provide a better understanding of the complex inequalities that families and individuals are facing in the 21st century, and cover important topics such as poverty, social insurance and family policy in the Nordic and Baltic areas. Challenges to the Welfare State will be of great interest to social policy scholars and policy makers, particularly those with an interest in the Baltic and Nordic countries. It will also be a welcome addition to the literature for students interested in family policy and pension protection reforms, and those with a general interest in the contemporary welfare state studies in Europe.

Table of Contents:
Contents: Preface xii 1 Introduction: Baltic and Nordic countries from a comparative perspective – family policies and pensions in the era of ageing 1 Jolanta Aidukaite, Sven E. O. Hort and Stein Kuhnle PART I PERSPECTIVES ON FAMILY POLICY 2 Family support systems in the Baltic and Nordic countries: an explorative overview 11 Jolanta Aidukaite 3 Demographic challenges of Europe in the new millennium: Swedish family policies as an answer to them 33 Livia Sz. Oláh and Gerda Neyer 4 Nordic family policy in the 2000s: from a ‘transfer-based’ towards a ‘service-based’ family policy? 52 Mia Hakovirta and Mikael Nygård 5 Family policy support for the earner-carer and traditional-family models in Lithuania and Sweden1 72 Katharina Wesolowski, Sunnee Billingsley and Gerda Neyer 6 The sustainability of family support systems in the 21st century: comparing Sweden and Lithuania 94 Jolanta Aidukaite and Kristina Senkuviene 7 Cost of childcare: evolution of regional diversity in Estonia 119 Mare Ainsaar and Mona Sõukand PART II PERSPECTIVES ON PENSION PROTECTION IN THE ERA OF AGEING 8 Ageing and the welfare state: welfare policies and attitudes in the Baltic and Nordic countries 137 Jolanta Aidukaite, Sven E. O. Hort and Mare Ainsaar 9 Gender inequalities in family leaves, employment and pensions in Finland 160 Kati Kuitto and Susan Kuivalainen 10 Approaches to minimum-income protection in old age: comparing the three Scandinavian countries 180 Axel West Pedersen 11 Pension systems as risk management: a case of the Baltic states 202 Olga Rajevska 12 Looking for an adequate and sustainable old-age pension system: comparing Sweden and Lithuania 224 Teodoras Medaiskis and Šarūnas Eirošius 13 The inequality of public pension benefits for the elderly using Estonian data 248 Magnus Piirits 14 Stretching the canvas: beyond welfare state typologies to capability and agency 267 Barbara Hobson Index