Families And Households - Families And Social Policies (topic 7) Flashcards
What is Ronald Fletchers perspectives on families and social policy?
Functionalists see society as built on harmony and consensus (shared values), and free from major conflict. They see the state as acting in the interests of society as a whole and its social policies as being good of all. Functionalists see policies as helping families to perform their functions more effectively and make life better for their members. Ronald Fletcher argues that the introduction of health, education and housing policies in the years since the industrial revolution has gradually led to the development of a welfare state supports the family in performing its functions more effectively. For instance, the national health care system helps take better care of its members when they are sick.
What are criticisms of the functionalists view on families and social policies?
- It assumes that all members of the family benefit equally from social policies, whereas feminists for example argue that policies often benefit men at the expense of women.
- It assumes that there is a march of progress, with social policies steadily making family life better and better. However, Marxists for example argue that policies can also turn the clock back and reverse progress previously made, for example by cutting welfare benefits to poor families.
What is Donzelot view on the policing the family?
Donzelot offers a very different perspective on the relationship between the family and state policies from that of the functionalists. Rather than a consensus view of policy as benefiting the family. Donzelot has a conflict view of society and he sees policy as a form of state power and control over families. He argues that social workers, health visitors and doctors use their knowledge to control and change families. Surveillance is not targeted equally on all social classes. Poor families are more likely to be seen as problem families and as the cause of crime and anti-social behaviour. These are the families that professionals target for improvement.
For example, as Rachel Condry notes, the state may seek to control and regulate family life by imposing compulsory Parenting Orders through the courts. Parents of young offenders, truants or badly behaved children may be forced to attend parenting classes to learn the correct way to bring up their children.
Donzelot rejects the functionalists march of progress view that social policy and the professionals who carry it out have created a better, freer or more humane society. Instead, he sees social policy as a form of state control of the family.
What is Brenda Almonds perspectives in families and social policy?
The new right are strongly in favour of the conventional or traditional nuclear family based on a married, heterosexual couple, with a division of labour between a male provider and female homemaker. They see this family type as naturally self-reliant and capable of caring and providing for its members, especially the successful socialisation of children. In their view, the changes that have led to greater family diversity such as increases in divorce, cohabitation, same-sex partnerships and lone parenthood are threatening the conventional family and producing social problems such as crime and welfare dependency.
Brenda Almond argues that:
- Laws making divorce easier undermine the idea of marriage as a lifelong commitment between a man and a women.
- The introduction of civil partnerships for gay and lesbian couples sends out the message that the state no longer sees heterosexual marriage as superior to other domestic set ups.
- Tax laws discriminate against conventional families with a sole breadwinner. They cannot transfer the non-working partners tax allowances to the working partner, so they tend to pay more tax than dual-earner couples, each of whom has a tax allowance.
What is Murray’s view on lone parents, welfare policy and the dependency culture?
In their view providing generous welfare benefits, such as council housing for unmarried teenage mothers and cash payments to support lone parent families, undermines the conventional nuclear family and encourages deviant and dysfunctional family types that harm society. Murray argues that these welfare benefits offer perverse incentives - they rewards irresponsible or antisocial behaviour:
- If fathers sees that the state will maintain their children, some of them will abandon their responsibilities towards their families.
- Providing council housing for unmarried teenage mothers encourages young girls to become pregnant.
- The growth of lone parents families, encouraged by generous benefits, means more boys grow up without a male role model and authority figure. This lack of paternal authority is responsible for a rising crime rate among young males.
Thus for the new right, social policy has a major impact on family roles and relationships. Current policies are encouraging a dependency culture, where individuals come to depend on the state to support them and their children rather than being self-reliant.
What are criticisms of the new right view on families and social policy?
- Feminists argue that it is an attempt to justify a return to the traditional patriarchal nuclear family that subordinated women to men and confined them to domestic role.
- Abbott and Wallace argues that cutting benefits would simply drive many poor families into even greater poverty and make them even less self-reliant.
What is the conservative government 1979-97?
Mrs Thatchers conservative government banned the promotion of homosexuality by local authorities. This included a ban on teaching that homosexuality was an acceptable family relationships. The conservatives also defined divorce as a social problem - a view held by the new right - and emphasised the continued responsibility of parents for their children after divorce. They set up the child support agency to enforce maintenance payments by absent parents. On the other hand the conservatives introduced measures opposed by the new right, such as making divorce easier and giving illegitimate children the same rights as those born to married parents.
What is the new labour governments 1997-2010?
There are similarities between new right and new labour views on the family is the bedrock of society and saw a family headed by a married, heterosexual couple as the best environment for bringing up children. However, as Silva and Smart notes, new labour rejected the new right view that the family should have just one earner and recognised that women too now go to work.
- Longer maternity leave, three months unpaid leave for both parents and the right to seek time off work for family reasons. These policies made it easier for both parents to work.
- Working families fax credit, enabling parents to claim some tax relief on childcare costs.
- The new deal, helping lone parents to return to work.
What is the conservatives-led government from 2010?
. Modernisers recognise that families are now more diverse and are willing to reflect this in their policies.
. Traditionalists favour a new right view and reject diversity as morally wrong.
This division means that the conservatives have found it hard to maintain a consistent policy line on the family. For example, the conservatives led government introduced same-sex marriage, a policy opposed by the new right. Traditionalists influence was also weakened by the conservatives having to share power in coalition with the Liberal Democrats.
Critics argue that conservative financial austerity policies reflect the new rights desire to cut welfare spending. However, the conservatives failed to introduce policies to promote the new rights nuclear family ideal. For example, Browne found that two-parents families were penalised by tax and benefits policies. Shared parental leave introduced in 2015 and increased free childcare for working parents in 2017 also undermine the new rights preferred male-breadwinner family.
What is Hilary Land view on policy as self-fulling prophecy?
Feminists such as Hilary Land argue that many social policies assume that the ideal family is the patriarchal nuclear family with a male provider and female homemaker plus their dependant children. This norm of what the family should be like affects the kind of policies governing family life. In turn, the effect of the policies is often to reinforce that particular type of family at the expense of other types, creating a self-fulling prophecy. For example, if the state assumes that normal families are based on marriage and offer tax incentives to married couples that are not available to cohabiting couple, this policy may encourage marriage and discourage cohabitation.
What are the policies that support the patriarchal family?
- Tax and benefits policies = may assume that husbands are the main wage earners and that wives are their financial dependents. This can make it impossible for wives to claim social security benefits in their own right, since it is expected that their husbands will provide. This then reinforces women’s dependence on their husbands.
- Childcare = while the government pays for some childcare for pre-school children, this is not enough to permit parents to work full-time unless they can meet the additional costs themselves. Likewise policies governing school timetables and holidays make it hard for parents to work full time unless they can afford extra childcare. This means that women are restricted from working and placed in a position of economic dependence on their partners.
- Care for the sick and elderly = Government policies often assume that the family will provide this care. In general, this means it is middle-aged women who are expected to do the caring. In turn, this often prevents them from working full time, increasing their economic dependence on their partners.
Diana Leonard argues even where policies appear to support women, they may still reinforce the patriarchal family and act as a form of social control over women. For example, although maternity leave policies benefit women, they also reinforce patriarchy in the family. Maternity leave entitlement is much more generous than that for paternity leave and this encourages the assumption that the care of infants is the responsibly of mothers rather than the fathers. Maternity benefits are also low, thereby increasing mother’s economic dependence on their partners.
What is Drew’s view on the gender regimes?
Drew uses the concept of gender regime to describe how social policies in different countries can either encourage or discourage gender equality in the family and at work. She identifies two types of gender regime following different types of family policies:
• familistic gender regimes, where policies are based on a traditional gender division between male breadwinner and temale housewife and carer.
In Greece, for example, there is little state welfare or publicly funded childcare. Women have to rely heavily on support from their extended kin and there is a traditional division of labour.
• individualistic gender regimes, where policies are based on the belief that husbands and wives should be treated the same. Wives are not assumed to be financially dependent on their husbands, so each partner has a separate entitlement to state benefits.
In Sweden, for example, policies treat husbands and wives as equally responsible both for breadwinning and domestic tasks. Equal opportunities policies, state provision of childcare, parental leave and good quality welfare services mean that women are less dependent on their husbands and have more opportunities to work.
State versus market
Drew argues that most European Union countries are now moving towards more individualistic gender regimes. This is likely to bring a move away from the traditional patriarchal family and towards greater gender equality in family roles and relationships.
However, policies such as publicly funded childcare do not come cheap, and they involve major conflicts about who should benefit from social policies and who should pay for them. It would therefore be naive to assume that there is an inevitable ‘march of progress’ towards gender equality.
For example, feminists argue that since the global recession began in 2008, cutbacks in government spending throughout Europe have led to pressure on women to take more responsibility for caring for family members as the state retreats from providing welfare.
During this period, there has also been a trend towards neoliberal welfare policies, in which individuals and tamilies are encouraged to use the market rather than the state to meet their needs, for example through private pension provision and private care of the old.
Nevertheless, the differences between European countries show that social policies can play an important role in promoting or preventing gender equality in the family.
