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• Childcare policy responses towards Covid-19 differed in European welfare states. • Policy responses cause informalization of childcare to different degrees. • Informalization of childcare is mainly connected with social risks for women. • Cultural and institutional differences help to understand varying policy responses. The closure of extra-familial childcare facilities by European governments in 2020 was an important part of interventions against the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. One consequence was that childcare was provided by parents at home, mainly by women. As a result, women mainly experienced financial and employment risks related to this "informalization" of childcare. The childcare policies of European welfare states differ in the extent to which they include measures to reduce the social risks related to informalization. Against this backdrop, this paper asks: How should one understand cross-national differences in childcare policies during the pandemic? We are also particularly interested in the effects of childcare policies on the social risks connected with the informalization of childcare and what these mean for the gendered division of paid work and care. Differences in childcare policies during the pandemic are commonly explained in terms of the path dependence of such policies. Using the theoretical approach of "care arrangement," this article introduces a broader theoretical framework that considers the role of cultural and institutional factors for understanding the cross-national differences in childcare policies during the pandemic. We introduce the findings of a comparative empirical study of childcare policies in three European welfare states—Denmark, Germany and England—that represent different types of care arrangements. This paper uses policy and media documents, quantitative data on childcare and women's employment, cultural ideas and secondary analysis of empirical studies. We find that governments did not per se respond to the pandemic based on institutional path dependence regarding childcare policies, while the integration of culture into the theoretical framework allows for a more comprehensive understanding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores how far the concepts of de-familialisation/familialisation are adequate to the classification of long-term care (LTC) policies for older people. In the theoretical debate over LTC policies, de-familialising and familialising policies are often treated as opposites. We propose re-conceptualising the relation between de-familialisation and familialisation, arguing that they represent substantially different types of policy that, in theory, can vary relatively autonomously. In order to evaluate this theoretical assumption, this article investigates the relation between the generosity level of LTC policies on extra-familial care, and the generosity level of LTC policies on paid family care, introducing a new multi-dimensional approach to measuring the generosity of LTC policy for older persons. It also explores the consequences of this for gender equality. The empirical study is based on a cross-national comparison of LTC policies in five European welfare states which show significant differences in their welfare state tradition. Data used are from document analysis of care policy law, the Mutual Information System on Social Protection, the European Quality of Life Survey and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. The findings support the argument that de-familialising and familialising LTC policies can vary relatively independently of each other in theory. It turns out that we get a better understanding of the relationship between LTC policy and gender equality if we analyse the role of different combinations of extra-familial and familial LTC policies for gender equality. The paper brings new insights into the ways welfare states act in regard to their LTC policies. It helps to clarify how the concept of de-familialisation/familialisation can be understood, and what this means for the relationship between LTC policies and gender equality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]