Questions of gender and family occupy a central place in public and political debate today. Discussions about gender roles and family benefits are often conducted in a highly emotional and polarising tone. One consequence of this is an instrumentalisation of family and gender questions by populist political parties, seeking to whip up support with anti-emancipatory slogans. This development is not only observed in Germany, but affects many other societies too. The growing centrality of family and gender issues also needs to be understood in the context of changing gender roles and growing female economic participation. In many cases the successes have been driven by progressive political forces. This study summarises the latest developments and centre-left discourses in concise contributions from nine countries and supplies a basis for comparison (including France, Germany, Sweden and the United States).