Dr Ivana Dobrotić

Dr Ivana Dobrotić is an Associate Professor of Comparative Social Policy at the University of Zagreb, Faculty of Law and an Associate Member of the Department of Social Policy and Intervention, University of Oxford. Ivana holds a PhD in Sociology from the University of Ljubljana (Slovenia) and a Master in Social Work from the University of Zagreb (Croatia). Before joining the University of Zagreb, she worked as an expert in Croatian ministry in charge of poverty and social inclusion policies and gender equality. She is a Steering Committee member of the ECPR Standing Group on Gender and Politics and co-editor of the Annual Review of Leave Policies & Related Research.

In the 2018–2021 period, she was a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellow at the University of Oxford as a PI of the InCARE project investigating parenting leaves and childcare policies’ development in Southeastern Europe with a particular focus on parents in precarious employment. Her research interest is in the field of comparative social policy, with a particular interest in work-care policies, gender, social and spatial inequalities. Ivana has been extensively involved in policymaking activities at the national and EU level, aiming to improve parents’ and children’s rights, advising and collaborating with ministries and other stakeholders (e.g., European Commission, European Institut for Gender Equality – EIGE, UNICEF). Among other things, she was a member of the EU Social Protection Committee working group Work-life Balance Indicators and led a team developing the blueprint report for addressing child poverty and social exclusion in Croatia and informing the EU Child Guarantee implementation.

Ivana’s work has been published in the Journal of European Social Policy, Social Politics, European Societies, Social Policy & Administration, Journal of Contemporary European Studies, Europe-Asia Studies, International Journal of Sociology & Social Policy, Southeast European and Black Sea Studies.

Current projects

Publications

Dobrotić, I. and Blum, S. (2019) Inclusiveness of Parental-Leave Benefits in Twenty-One European Countries: Measuring Social and Gender Inequalities in Leave Eligibility, Social Politics, doi.org/10.1093/sp/jxz023

Dobrotić, I. and Blum, S. (2019) ‘A social right? Access to leave and its relation to parent’s labour market position.’ In `Parental leave and beyond: recent international developments, current issues and future directions`, eds. P. Moss, A. Duvander, A. Koslowski, The Policy Press.

Matković, T., Dobrotić, I., Baran, J. (2019), What’s Kindergarten Got to Do with It? Access to Early Childhood Education and Care and Reproduction of Social Inequalities in Regular Education: Analysis of PISA and TIMSS data, Croatian Sociological Review, 49 (1): 7-35.

Dobrotić, I. and Varga, M. (2018) ‘Why are paternity leaves and the father’s quotas important? A comparative overwiew of father`s leave schemes and factors and outcomes of father’s leave use in European countries’, Sociological Review, 48(2). Read https://hrcak.srce.hr/revija-za-sociologiju

Blum, S. and Dobrotić, I. (2018) ‘Wer hat Zugang zu Elterngeld? Soziale Rechte und Anspruchsbedingungen in vergleichender Perspektive’, Sozialer Fortschritt, 67 (2018), 667 – 687. Read https://ejournals.duncker-humblot.de/doi/pdf/10.3790/sfo.67.8-9.667

Dobrotić, I. (2018) ‘Ambivalent character of leave policies development in Croatia: between pronatalist and gender equality agenda’, Revista del Ministerio de Empleo y Seguridad Social, Special issue on leave policy and use in Mediterranean and South American countries, 36: 109 – 128. Read https://dialnet.unirioja.es/ejemplar/498265

Dobrotić, I., Matković, T., Menger, V. (2018), ‘An analysis of the indicators of the accessibility, quality, capacities and financing of the early and childhood education and care system in Croatia’. Zagreb: Ministry of Demography, Family, Youth and Social Policy. Read https://mdomsp.gov.hr/UserDocsImages/Publikacije/Analiza%20pristupa%C4%8Dnosti%20%2C%20kvalitete%2C%20kapaciteta%20i%20financiranja%20sustava%20ranog%20i%20pred%C5%A1kolskog%20odgoja%20i%20obrazovanja%20u%20Republici%20Hrvatskoj.pdf

English summary: https://mdomsp.gov.hr/UserDocsImages/Publikacije/Dobrotic%20Matkovic%20Menger%202018%20Summary%20in%20English.pdf

Ajduković, M., Dobrotić, I. and Matančević, J. (2017) ‘Opportunities for advancing social policy in reducing child poverty: the perspective of key stakeholders’, Annual of Social Work, 24(2): 309-356. Read https://hrcak.srce.hr/index.php?show=toc&id_broj=15586

Bagić, D., I. Dobrotić, J. Lažnjak, P. Rodik, T. Vučković Juroš (2016) ‘Household Strategies of Coping of Economically (Partially) Inactive Households: A Case of Croatia’, Südosteuropa Journal of Politics and Society. Read https://www.degruyter.com/view/j/soeu.2017.65.issue-3/soeu-2017-0034/soeu-2017-0034.xml?format=INT

Dobrotić, I. (2016) ‘Crisis and Croatian welfare state: a new opportunity for welfare state retrenchment?’, In: K. Schubert, P. de Villota and J. Kuhlmann (eds.), Challenges to European Welfare Systems, Springer Publishing. Read https://www.springer.com/gb/book/9783319076799

Dobrotić, I. and Vučković Juroš, T. (2016) ‘Who should finance childcare? Multilevel analysis of 24 countries’. Croatian Journal of Social Policy, 23(3): 323-357. Read http://www.rsp.hr/ojs2/index.php/rsp/article/view/1392

Dobrotić, I. (2016) ‘Development and Difficulties of the Eldercare System in Croatia’, Journal for General Social Issues, 25(1): 21-45. Read https://hrcak.srce.hr/index.php?show=clanak&id_clanak_jezik=232817

Blum, S., Formánková L. and Dobrotić, I. (2014) ‘Family Policies in ‘Hybrid’ Welfare States after the Crisis: Pathways between policy expansion and retrenchment’ Social Policy & Administration 48 (4), 468-491. Read https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/spol.12071

Dobrotić, I.; Matković, T.; Zrinščak; S. (2013) ‘Gender Equality Policies and Practices in Croatia – The Interplay of Transition and Late Europeanization’ Social Policy & Administration, 47(2): 218-240. Read https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/

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