Introduction The passage of the 1996 PRWORA (Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunities Reconciliation Act) transformed the U.S. welfare system from a federal entitlement program that emphasized cash assistance to poor families, primarily, to a state block grant that stressed time limits and work. More specifically, the law mandated lifetime time limits of five years for receipt of cash assistance (TANF), required employment for most mothers on welfare, even those with very young children (as young as three months of age). It also required teen parents to live in an approved supervised setting, preferably at home with their parents, and to participate in school or training to receive benefits. It also brought increased attention to the critical role of child care in supporting parents’ employment and self-sufficiency as well as the healthy development and school readiness for children. The law’s explicit goals include: preventing non-marital births, encouraging marriage and strengthening two-parent families.

Children are the largest age group in the world’s population and the most vulnerable group economically, socially, and physically. Given the extensive demographic and social changes in recent years, there is a search for new policy strategies for protecting children and promoting child and family well-being. Even when there is economic growth and political commitment to children, and as essential as these are, more is needed. In particular, knowledge regarding which policy strategies are most effective is essential, if the goal is to do better by children.

Given global demographic and social trends, the need for new policy and program responses is essential. This article identifies and describes new and traditional social risks affecting children and their families in both industrialized and developing countries by region. Traditional risks continue in the developing as well as the industrialized countries but the extent and scale are very different and the problems are far more severe in developing countries. In addition, new risks are now evident and new policy responses are emerging. Attention to the new risks is increasing, with growing investment in services and policies facilitating the reconciliation of work and family life and non-traditional families. The citizens of many developing countries experience new risks as well, but their capacity to confront and address these risks is also more limited.

Early childhood education and care (ECEC) in the US includes a wide range of part-day, full-school-day, and full-work-day programs, under educational, social welfare, and commercial auspices, funded and delivered in a variety of ways in both the public and the private sectors, designed sometimes with an emphasis on the “care” component of ECEC and at other times with stress on “education” or with equal attention to both. Although ECEC scholars and advocates are increasingly convinced of the need to integrate all these program types, categorical funding coupled with diverse societal values continue to support the differences. The result is a fragmented ECEC system, of wide-ranging quality and with skewed access, but with some movement in recent years toward the integration of early childhood education and care.

Using time series and survey data, this article explores public commitment to children and their families from 1980 through 2001 in 21 industrialized countries. Despite the shrinking child population in all countries and the slowed growth of the welfare state in most, the authors find that spending on children and families has increased in most countries. The authors conclude that the instruments and goals of the family benefit and service package have changed over time and that future public spending on children is increasingly likely to go toward helping families balance their responsibilities as workers and parents and toward enhancing the development of young children.

Previous articleNext article No AccessBook ReviewWork, Family, Health, and Well‐Being. Edited by Suzanne M. Bianchi, Lynne M. Casper, and Rosalind Berkowitz King. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2005. Pp. 600. $145.00 (cloth).Sheila B. KamermanSheila B. KamermanColumbia University Search for more articles by this author Columbia UniversityPDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Social Service Review Volume 80, Number 2June 2006 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/505660 Views: 17Total views on this site Permission to reprint a book review printed in this section may be obtained only from the author.PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.