This presentation maps the legal and political landscape in which Muslim marriages and divorces are situated in contemporary Europe and offers a review of how Northern and Western European States in particular have responded to the challenges posed by practices of Islamic family law. Three dimensions of wellbeing (material, relational and ethical, following White 2010) are examined in the context of European policies and legislation relating to transnational family life. In a legal context, the material aspect of wellbeing may be seen as fair distribution or procedural norms, the relational aspect as paying attention to autonomy and dependency, and the ethical aspect as the possibility of ethical subjectivity and engagement with questions of justice in legal arenas. In all these dimensions, gender and other identity categories act as important categories of analysis. This article contributes by adopting the concept of wellbeing as the prism of analysis, analysing how the concept of wellbeing translates to legal norms and rights and asking whether and how the legal framework contributes to the wellbeing of Muslim families. The article offers a discussion of wellbeing on three levels: 1) a jurisprudential analysis on wellbeing and rights in the context of marriage and divorce in European human rights law, 2) a literature review on European legal approaches to Muslim marriages and divorce and how they foster wellbeing and 3) a closer examination of relevant case law from European institutions.

Finland has been maintained as a social service state in which childcare services are universally provided and available for all (Anttonen & Sipilä 1994; Eydal & Rostgaard 2011). Having said this Finnish childcare policies can be labelled also controversial and complex. They encourage children’s participation in early childhood education, but they also support home and informal care, and private childcare production by different kinds of cash-for-care benefits. The Finnish model is often considered as securing equality between families, but municipal childcare systems and cash-for-care benefits vary increasingly. The government’s new policies to limit families’ right to municipal day care intensify these complexities.

The municipal variations and the system of cash-for-care benefits can be considered as a potential source of inequalities. The presentation will discuss how Finnish childcare policies may condition parental childcare decisions, and consequently, contribute to children’s early education trajectories. The presentation will introduce the new consortium research project “Finnish childcare policies: In/Equality in Focus” funded by the Strategic Research Council (SRC) at the Academy of Finland that studies possible inequalities in childcare between regions and families. The project will be carried out in collaboration with 10 municipalities that provide different combinations of childcare services and cash benefits. The study applies a multi-method and longitudinal approach. The data consist of documents, expert interviews, survey, parent and child interviews as well as recordings of institutional interaction.

The Italian Supreme Court has recently debated the impact of the change of sex in existing marriages (Case 8097/2015); the Court has also redefined the conditions for the legal rectification of sex (Case 15138/2015).

The analysis of these decisions raises the issue of the importance of gender for the legal institution of family and for personal status, as well as of the complex nature of the legal notion of gender.

Notwithstanding that the Italian Law does not attempt to define the concept of gender, it considers gender as the basis of different disciplines concerning family law, self-determination and personal identity. In this context, the right of every person to define him/herself and to be recognized and respected becomes relevant. These factors affect, among other things, the rules concerning family formation, and the regulation of marriage.

This paper aims to identify the areas of friction within self-determination in relation to the legal rectification of sex. In addition, it analyses the consequences of sex reassignment on Family Law, especially within the legal institution of marriage. Some possible guidelines will be identified for orienting the discussion.

This research, not based on statistical analysis, is empirically founded on ECHR, foreign and national case-law and legal documents, considered in relation to the notion of gender drawn by other disciplines (particularly social sciences and psychiatry).