This collection sets out to analyze the influence of women's movements on the emergence of Europe's welfare state from the 1880s to the 1950s, and the limits of that influence. It compares the women's movements - and social policies concerning women - in the dictatorships of Italy, Germany and Spain with the democracies in Britain, France and Scandinavia. It throws new lights on feminism, especially in the inter-war period.

List of tables and figures; Contributors; Acknowledgements; Introduction; 1Voluntary motherhood 1900-1930: theories and politics of a Norwegian feminist in an international perspective, Ida Blom; 2Family welfare, which policy? Norway's road to child allowances, Anne-Lise Seip and Hilde Ibsen; 3The invisible child? The struggle for a Social Democratic family policy in Sweden, 1900-1960s, Ann-Sofie Ohlander; 4Models of equality for women: the case of state support for children in twentieth-century Britain, Jane Lewis; 5Visions of gender in the making of the British welfare state: the case of women in the British Labour Party and social policy, 1906-1945, Pat Thane; 6French feminism and maternity: theories and policies, 1890-1918, Anne Cova; 7Body politics: women, work and the politics of motherhood in France, 1920-1950, Karen Offen; 8Pronatalism and motherhood in Franco's Spain, Mary Nash; 9Motherhood as a political strategy: the role of the Italian women's movement in the creation of the Cassa Nazionale di Maternità, Annarita Buttafuoco; 10Redefining maternity and paternity: gender, pronatalism and social policies in fascist Italy, Chiara Saraceno; 11Housework and motherhood: debates and policies in the women's movement in Imperial Germany and the Weimar Republic, Irene Stoehr; 12Antinatalism, maternity and paternity in National Socialist racism, Gisela Bock; Index;