Changing Families studies Flashcards
Smith 2013
Looking at UK’s New Deal (1998) for lone parents
- active welfare, targeting lone parents to seek work
- conflict in supporting families vs regulating their behaviour - right to privacy (Article 8 HRA 1998) vs need to protect children (s1 CA 1989)
- in order to support the capitalist economy, policies regulate parents to take responsibility for their children
- idea that good parenting can compensate for disadvantage? NO - need to help lift from poverty
- some like, help move into work
- some feel forced away from children
- some feel threat of losing benefits - ‘work focussed interviews’ - so impacts child’s mental health also
- even greater sanctions and conditionality with UC
Census trends
1971 - 68% married/cohabiting, 6% lone parent
2001 - 53% married/cohabiting, 10% lone parent
2011 - 43% married/cohabiting, 10.6% lone parent
- predict for 2021 - increase in shared/multifamily living with housing crisis, more intergenerational living
Hennison 2003
Complex and contradictory family policy
‘care in supporting families and control in regulating their behaviour’
Hieda 2013
Government’s policy position affects changes in public spending on childcare provision
- left-liberal governments increase budget for childcare, right-conservatives don’t
- 18 advanced industrialised countries analysed from studies spanning 25 years
Korpi et al 2013
- earner-carer models - Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Norway
- traditional models - France, Germany, Italy
- market-oriented - UK, USA, Australia, Japan
- disagrees with claims that earner-carer policies only work for the working class
- earner-carer model increases employment of women, with no undermined opportunities for women to reach the top (glass ceiling)
Eydal et al 2014
Analysing parental leave in Nordic countries
Nordic countries have good gender equality
- good labour market participation of women (BUT no increase in fathers participation in family life and childcare)
- daycare services
- paid maternity leave
- representation in positions of power
- sharing of housework and childcare
- ‘state feminism’ as a political agenda
- parties left of centre as driving forces - differences between Scandinavian countries growing, different emphasis on fathers’ quota
- moving towards right ‘free choice’ model, so more flexibility in parental leave
Duncan et al 2017
Poverty hinders healthy development
- family and environmental stress perspective (stress response, impairs cognitive functioning). Elder 1974 ->
- resource and investment perspective. Becker 1991, household production theory
- cultural perspective. Lewis 1969, culture of poverty
- reduced academic skills and attainment in poorer children, especially younger children (1997)
Duncan et al, 2010
Adults who were poor as children
- 2 years less schooling
- earned <50% as much
- worked fewer hours
- received more food stamps
- 3x as likely to report poor health
Ridge 2009
‘Poverty penetrates deep into the heart of childhood, permeating every facet of children’s lives from economic and material disadvantage, through the structuring and limiting of social participation to the most personal often hidden aspects of disadvantage associated with the shame, sadness and the fear of social difference and marginalisation.’
Ridge 2013
Hidden costs of austerity on children
- the generation of stigma and difference - political rhetoric about legitimacy of welfare recipients, deserving vs undeserving poor. Deficit model of poverty, fuelled by media to create social ‘otherness’, and stigmatising labels -> stigmatising policies
- economic and material concerns - fear of debt and financial insecurity, policies and cuts most affect the poorest with youngest children
- social and relational support - anxieties about opportunities for participation, poverty restricts chance to make friends via costs of social events and transport. Even eg reduced funding for speed cameras, affects low income children constrained into local neighbourhoods more
- political visibility and policy engagement - legislative requirement to consult with children, but Coalition’s first child poverty strategy 2011 confused message, behind schedule, language of deficit discourse with no real reference to children themselves. Children not considered citizens in their own rights - but ‘workers of the future’
Flaherty and Banks 2013
Dynamics of debt in poor households
- inability to access mainstream credit -> high-cost alternative sources
- 69% low-income households use credit - payday loans, home credit companies expanding even in financial crisis
- employment not required, credit checks less rigorous, repayments over extended period, and ‘trusted’ known source
- constant juggling of finances - anxiety-inducing, but could be seen as actively managing budget
- don’t seek help until crisis point
Ridge 2011
- economic and material deprivation - going without toys and leisure goods, also sometimes the essentials
- poverty and social relationships - anxiety, unhappiness, social insecurity undermine childhood. Increasing commodification of childhood creates barriers to participation
- personal - fear of being left out, as poverty -> uncertainty and insecurity
- experiences of poverty in the home - family needs in tension with own social needs and desires, usually empathetic and understanding of parents
- homelessness and housing - affects health and wellbeing (anxiety, sleep, coldness) and social lives (having friends over)
- neighbourhood - feeling unsafe
Cope by contributing to family budgets through employment, moderating needs and managing expectations, and concealing effects of poverty
Public services have essential role!
Daly and Kelly 2015
Relative (dis)empowerment
- mostly not disempowered, felt possible to change circumstances - but only with support from family/public/voluntary services
- if disempowered, think work is only way out of poverty and not available - disability/illness/no work
- if empowered, on the trajectory of change, in education or local community involvement
Dispositions, resources, capabilities
- changes personality, always stressed, serious
- need to emphasise emotional resources gained by those under pressure - ‘rich’ in love, closeness, happiness - should focus on assets, not passive recipients
- pride - in ability to use money well, in children, in ability to get through adversity and maintain family relationships
- resilience not helpful idea, -> victim blaming
Constructing family life
- family as special, different from others
- for occasions, need to plan and put away money/go without
- planning money takes work and energy
Dibben 2015
Study of teenage mothers in Malta
4 categories of young mother:
- called to motherhood
- empowered by motherhood
- saved by motherhood
- soldiering through motherhood
- differently experienced, but all capable of being good mothers, all trying their best
Ruddick 1990s
Maternal thinking
- mothering as ‘a way of seeing and thinking about the world’, ‘a kind of work or practice’
Lidz 1970
Women’s biological purpose to conceive, bear, nurture children
Wolf 2010
Breastfeeding
- ‘breast is best’ message creates enormous moral pressure
- some medical benefits yes (GI infections) but generally overstated
Hays 1996
Intensive mothering
- mothers to invest high levels of time and resources in children
- mothers should get intrinsic satisfaction in devotion of self to child, feel completely fulfilled
- exhausting for mothers, stressful for children, excluding for fathers
- ‘child-centred, expert-guided, emotionally-absorbing. labour-intensive, financially expensive’
O’Reilly 2004
Intensive mothering came along as women started earning, controlling own income
- ideology expects mothers to lavish money and attention on child
- as working mothers feel need to compensate for absence with ‘quality time’
Bernard and Correll 2010
Interviews of women, participants told mother/not
- consistently rated less competent and committed
- not true if men are fathers/not - then seen as more mature, sensitive, suited to leadership roles
