IOs’ Role in Global Social Governance: Family Policy

Abstract

This chapter focuses on family policy as an object of global social governance. From the 1990s to 2008, the family policy field was bifurcated. One part, focused on family norms in the North, followed the shift from the male breadwinner to the adult earner family with its work-family tensions. Here the main IOs were the ILO and the OECD. The second part focused on the South and policies targeting children in poor families. Although UNICEF clearly played an important role on the ground here, it was the World Bank that took the lead in elaborating and disseminating the core ideas. Since the 2008 crisis, the field has come together through the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which simultaneously address both North and South. The dominant discourse is ‘inclusive growth’, challenged by the more critical discourse on the ‘care economy’.