Abstract

The Author explains the importance of finding a definition of reconciliation in the area of social protection in order to be able to have a critical approach to the different instruments of reconciliation. She looks then to the definition of reconciliation in the European Union legislation and stresses how the notion of reconciliation is linked to substantial equality and to the redistribution of roles within the family as well as to a bi-directional nature of its provisions and to the presence of a complex whole of "rationes". These elements are then used to suggest a path for the definition of reconciliation in the social protection field.