Here you will find articles with in-depth, reflective or explanatory content which will help to deepen your understanding of families and social rights.
Parental leave policies are often seen as an important tool for promoting gender equality, supporting families and improving work-life balance. Yet a new policy brief from the COST Action Parental Leave Policies and Social Sustainability (Sustainability@Leave), argues that formal rights alone are not enough to ensure equal outcomes.
COFACE member organisation Fundacja Share the Care in Poland has published a new report examining developments in parental equality three years after the transposition of the EU Work-Life Balance Directive.
Two COFACE member organisations recently collaborated on a shared project. Together Ligue des Familles and Fond du Logement Wallonie, launched a survey to identify the needs of large families.
Families today are increasingly diverse and multiple, and often depending on their (re)composition, the number of children in a household can vary significantly over time, bringing new challenges and needs.
Glossary of key terms in EU family and social policy Accession – The term accession refers to the process in which a country’s candidature is accepted, and it officially becomes a member state of the European Union. Acquis Communautaire – The Acquis...
Australia banned social media for users under 16 in 2025. On the other side of the world, France, Greece and Spain are now also weighing social media bans for teenagers in the name of online safety. But is age-restricted access to social media the best solution to address the complexities of today’s parenting and teenagers’ mental health?
On this Safer Internet Day, COFACE Families Europe is calling on providers of social media platforms to make sure that their platforms are safe, secure and respect people's privacy and human rights.
COFACE Families Europe and the Odisee Centre for Family Studies in Brussels co-hosted a European conference in Brussels in September 2025. The conference convened 100+ researchers, policymakers, public administrators, and NGOs to advance integrated, place-based...
On 18 November 2025, the French National Assembly voted in favour of creating a new birth leave as part of the Social Security Financing Bill (PLFSS) for 2026. The measure marks an important step forward for families in France and a major advocacy success for UNAF (Union nationale des associations familiales), a member organisation of COFACE Families Europe, which has been calling for this reform for more than ten years.
The Spanish member organisation FAMS (Federación de Asociaciones de Madres Solteras) has published a new study examining the relationship between single-parenthood and gender-based violence, with a specific focus on women-led single-parent families in Spain.
