Family policies in Germany and Austria have undergone interesting developments during the last years: Starting from familialist positions, far-reaching changes seemed unlikely for several reasons (e.g. due to them being conservative welfare states, governed by grand coalitions). However, profound reforms as the introduction of income-related parental benefits or the expansion of childcare for under three-year-olds in both countries have run counter to these expectations and attracted attention. With these reforms, family policies in Germany and Austria removed from the comprehensive ‘retrenchment agenda’ in welfare policies. Several expansionary measures have been introduced after the start of the global financial crisis in 2007 and some even after it hit the real economy in 2008. However, since both countries enacted radical austerity packages in 2010, the question is whether these have continued with the newly struck family policy paths or whether they broke with them. Bringing to mind that the pre-crisis conditions, which framed the 2006 enactment of the German income-related parental benefit, were clearly different from the 2009 one’s framing the Austrian counterpart, spotlights the timing of policy processes. While theoretical approaches typically abstract from ‘time’ and ‘space’, Paul Pierson (2004) prominently argued that the significance of causal variables is frequently distorted when ripped from their temporal context. Against this background, this paper studies recent family policy reforms in Germany and Austria and their post-crisis amendments from a time-sensitive perspective: This contains, amongst others, a view to decisions made in the past, contingencies in policy processes, and sudden ‘windows of opportunity’. Taking a preview, the paper finds that the post-crisis reactions have enforced rather than decelerated the paradigmatic family policy changes in Germany and Austria: Although families experienced harsh savings measures, it seems that the crisis helped policymakers to legitimate the taken paths as ‘bare necessities’.
