Hallo! 

Belgium has been touted as one of the most progressive countries in Europe regarding work and family social policies.  Religion, social attitude changes and governmental policy have affected the Belgian economy and have led to an increased number of women in the workforce.  With the addition of large numbers of women, policy has been created to help facilitate their ability to work while allowing families to still have happy relationships.  This website will focus on Belgium's historical background to their policies, its regional breakdown, its current early childcare and its parental leave policies policies in place to help facilitate work/family relationships.

Belgium is broken into three regions:

• Wallonia - Located in the southern Belgium, Wallonia is home to the French-speaking Walloons who make up approximately one-third of Belgium’s total population of approximately 10 million.   Located inside Wallonia, the German-speaking Community has its own parliament and government.  
• Flanders  –  Over one half of the Belgian population reside in the northern provinces of Flanders.  The official language of Flanders is a dialect of Dutch called Flemish.
• The Brussels-Capital Region – Geographically situated between Flanders and Wallonia is the bilingual Brussels-Capital Region which contains the nation’s capital and roughly 10% of the population. 

DIVISION OF FAMILY POLICY RESPONSIBILITIES
Federal Authority	Regional Authority
social security tax policies child benefits (including family allowances) healthcare	housing employment childcare education youth welfare

For More Information about regional government policies, visit these websites: Flanders, Wallonia, & The Brussels-Capital Region.  (Note: Wallonia website is not available in English.)

Reference: 

Dumon, Wilfred.  2005.  “Belgium’s Families.” Pp. 215-233 in Handbook of World
        Families, edited by B. N. Adams and J. Trost.  New York: Sage Publications.