Families and Social Policy

Question 1

What is social policy?

Answer 1

Refers to the plans and actions of government and agencies e.g. health and social services or benefits system

Question 2

Give some examples of social policies aimed directly at families

Answer 2

Laws governing marriage
Divorce
Abortion
Contraception
Child protection
Adoption

Question 3

Give some examples of social policies that aren’t aimed directly at families but still have an effect on them

Answer 3

Compulsory education - enables parents to go to work while school provides a free ‘childminding service’

Question 4

What social policies was introduced in Romania in the 1980s?

Answer 4

A series of social policies to try to drive up the birth rate. It restricted contraception and abortion, set up infertility treatment centres, made divorce more difficult, lowered the legal age of marriage to 15 and msfr unmarried and childless couples pay an extra 5% income tax.

Question 5

What happened in China in 1985?

Answer 5

One child policy was introduced to try and control the population. Women must seek permission to try to become pregnant. Couples who comply with the policy get extra benefits i.e. free childcare. An only child will get priority in education and housing later in life.

Question 6

How do Functionalists view social policies?

Answer 6

See policies as helping families to perform their functions more effectively and make life better for their members

Question 7

What does Functionalist Fletcher argue?

Answer 7

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 that supports the family in performing its functions more effectively.
E.g. NHS means family is better able to take care of family when ill.

Question 8

How has the Functionalist view been criticised?

Answer 8

• it assumes that all members of the family benefit from social policies, whereas feminists 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, whereas Marxists argue that policies can also turn the clock back and reverse progress previously made, for example by cutting welfare benefits to poor families.

Question 9

How do the New Right view social policies?

Answer 9

• They believe social policies should avoid doing anything that might undermine the natural self reliant family.
• Criticise social policies for undermining the family.
• in particular they argue that governments often weaken the family’s self reliance by providing generous welfare benefits.

Question 10

What does Charles Murray argue?

Answer 10

Argues that these benefits offer perverse incentives - they reward irresponsible or antisocial behaviour
For example:

• if fathers see 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 parent families encouraged by generous benefits means more boys grow up without a male role model - which results in a rising crime rate among young males

Question 11

What can social policy encourage according to Marxists?

Answer 11

A dependency culture where individuals come to depend on the state to support them and their children rather than being self-reliant

Question 12

What is the New Right’s solution to these problems?

Answer 12

Policy must be changed, with cuts in welfare spending and tighter restrictions on who is eligible for benefits

Question 13

What are the benefits of this?

Answer 13

• cutting benefits would mean that taxes could be reduced, and both these changes would give fathers more incentive to work and provide for their families
• similarly, denying council housing to unmarried teenage mothers would remove at least one incentive to become pregnant when very young

Question 14

What do the new right advocate for?

Answer 14

Advocate policies to support traditional nuclear family, such as taxes that favour married rather than cohabiting couples, and the Child Support AGENCY, whose main role is to make absent fathers responsible for their children

Question 15

How do Functionalists and New Right disagree on social policies?

Answer 15

Functionalists think policies can benefit the family whereas NR think the less the state interferes in families, the better family life will be.

Question 16

How has NR been criticised?

Answer 16

• feminists argue that it is an attempt to justify a return to the traditional patriarchal family that subordinated women to men and confined them to a domestic role
• it wrongly assumes that the patriarchal nuclear family is ‘natural’ rather than socially constructed
• cutting benefits would simply drive many poor families into even greater poverty

Question 17

What is the feminist view on social policy?

Answer 17

They argue that all institutions, including the state and its policies, help to maintain women’s subordinate position and the unequal gender division of labour in the family.

Policies are based on assumptions about what the ‘normal’ family is like. In turn, the effect of the policies is to reinforce that type of family at the expense of other types. E.G. ‘normal’ families are based on marriage and offers benefits and tax incentives to married couples = encouraging marriage/ discouraging cohabitation. Creates a Self fulfilling prophecy

Question 18

What does Feminist Land argue?

Answer 18

social policies often assume the ideal family is the patriarchal nuclear family with a male provider and female home-maker along with their dependent children (leach calls this the cereal packet norm)

Question 19

Give examples of policies that reinforce existing patriarchal roles and relationships

Answer 19

• tax and benefits policies may assume that husbands are the main wage-earners and that wives are there financial dependants. This can make it impossible for wives to claim social security benefits in their own right, since it’s expected their husbands will provide. This then reinforces women’s dependence on their husbands.
• courts may assume that women should have custody of children in divorce cases because they are seen as the ‘natural’ carers.

Question 20

What does Diana Leonard argue?

Answer 20

Even where policies appear to support women, they may still reinforce the patriarchal family and act as a form of social control over women e.g. maternity leave and child benefit

Question 21

Why do feminists see maternity leave and child benefit as patriarchal?

Answer 21

Maternity leave is a lot more than paternity leave – this encourages the assumption that the care of infants is the mother’s responsibility

Child benefit is normally paid to the mother – assumes the child’s welfare is primarily her responsibility

Question 22

How has the feminist view been criticised?

Answer 22

Not all policies are directed at maintaining patriarchy. For example, equal pay and sex discrimination laws, benefits for lone parents, refuges for women escaping domestic violence and equal rights to divorce – could all be said to challenge the patriarchal family.

Question 23

What are gender regimes?

Answer 23

Describe how social policies in different countries can either encourage or discourage gender equality in the family and at work.

Question 24

Who talks about gender regimes?

Answer 24

Eileen Drew

Question 25

What two gender regimes does she identify?

Answer 25

familistic gender regimes

individualistic gender regimes

Question 26

What are familistic gender regimes?

Answer 26

These base their social policies on the assumption that the husband works to support the family while his wife stays at home and is responsible for childbearing, domestic work and the care of family members.

In Greece 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.

Question 27

What are individualistic gender regimes?

Answer 27

These base their family policies on the belief that husbands and wives should be treated the same.

In Sweden 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.

Question 28

Who talks about the policing of families?

Answer 28

Donzelot

Question 29

What does Donzelot say about policies?

Answer 29

Sees policy as a form of state power over families. He uses Foucault’s concept of surveillance. He sees power not just as something held by the government or state, but as diffused throughout society and found in all relationships.

Question 30

How does Donzelot apply these ideas to the family?

Answer 30

He is interested in how professionals carry out surveillance of families. He argues that social workers, health visitors and doctors use their knowledge to control and change families. Donzelot calls this ‘the policing of families’.
Poorer families are more likely to be seen as ‘problem families’ and the cause of crime and anti-social behaviour. These are the families professionals target for ‘improvement’. E.g. parents of badly behaved children are encouraged or forced to attend parenting classes to learn the ‘correct’ way to raise their children.

Question 31

What does Donzelot show the importance of?

Answer 31

Professional knowledge as a form of power and control.

Question 32

How do Marxists and Feminists criticise Donzelot?

Answer 32

For failing to identify clearly who benefits from such policies of surveillance. Marxists argue that social policies generally operate in the interests of the capitalist class, while feminists argue that men are the main beneficiaries.