Session 1

Doing Better For Families

Session 3

At a meeting in Paris on 2-3 May 2011, Ministers exchanged views on the serious short- and long-term challenges citizens are facing today and on what they could do to address them. They discussed the social impact of the global economic crisis and compared approaches to adapt social policy to support the recovery.

Under the broad umbrella of family policies, they discussed good practices in removing barriers to family formation, enhancing the well-being of children, promoting gender equality in employment, and innovative approaches to improve service delivery for vulnerable families.

The final session focused on social policy strategies to balance the needs of different generations, the fiscal and social impact of pension reforms, and caring for children, adults with long-term health conditions and /or disabilities, and for an increasing number of vulnerable older persons.

Prior to the social ministerial meeting, a Policy Forum on Tackling Inequality, open to the media, was held on the morning of 2 May 2011 to discuss the trend of high and increasing income inequality in many OECD countries as well as policy approaches to counter this trend.