Children and families: early intervention in peoples’ life courses

A core idea of the Social Investment perspective is that the future must be assured by investing in children in order to end the intergenerational transmission of disadvantage (Jenson 2009). Education has been called the vanguard of Social Investment (Deeming and Smyth 2015). Hemerijck (2002) proposes a ‘developmental’ welfare agenda for twenty-first century Europe. The concept of developmental welfare provides a common language for giving priority to guarantee high levels of employment for both men and women as a fundamental political objective, combining elements of flexibility and security, aimed at facilitating men and especially women in reconciling work and family life. The agenda implies early identification of problems through investment in services for young children, and family and child -centred interventions.