Families and social policy Flashcards
China’s one child policy
used to control population numbers (decrease)
Couples discouraged from having more than one child
women have to see permission from workplace committees to get pregnant w/ often waiting lists
Couples that comply get extra benefits, such as : free healthcare, higher tax allowances. Only one child will get priority in education and housing later in life.
Couples that break the rules must repay through allowances and pay large, fines and woman often pressure to sterilise after first birth.
Communist Romania
wanted to increase population as it was declining due to falling Romanian living standard
Did this by:
restricting contraception
restricting abortion
set up fertility treatment centres made divorce more difficult
lowered legal age of marriage to 15
made unmarried adults and childless couples pay extra 5% income tax
Nazi family policy
encouraged healthy and ‘racially pure’ breeding of a ‘master race’ by restricting abortion and contraception
-Aimed to keep women out of the workplace, confining them to children, kitchen and church (performing their biological role)
-The state sterilised 375,000 disabled people deemed unfit to breed due to physical malformation, mental disability, epilepsy, deafness and blindness (many were later murdered in Nazi concentration camps)
Functionalists
-influenced new right policies
-were conservative, antifeminist, stressed the importance of nuclear family and the dangers of family diversity
Fletcher
highlights how a family is helped out by the state through policy (education, housing, health) so we can perform its functions more effectively
Criticisms of the Functionalist view
-feminists argue that lots of these policies benefit men and not everyone equally
-Marxists argue about the march of progress view, but this can easily be reversed if the policies are revoked
Donzelot
Conflict view
sees policy as a form of state power over families
Argues that social workers, health, visitors and doctors use a knowledge as control and change poorer families
e.g. State controls and regulates family life by imposing compulsory parenting orders/contacts through courts
Parents of young offenders, truants or badly behaved. Children are forced to attend parenting classes to learn the correct way to bring up children.
Criticisms of the conflict view
-marxists argue that social policies generally operate in the interest of the capitalist class
-Marxists and feminists criticise for failing to identify who benefits from such policies of surveillance
Feminists argue that men are the main beneficiaries
New right perspective
States’ involvement takes away people’s choice and takes away the feelings of responsibility
This leads to crime and delinquency
Murray
argue that the generous welfare state gives perverse incentives that encourages a dependency culture
-if fathers see the state will maintain the children some may abandon their responsibilities
-Providing council housing for unmarried, teenage mothers encourages young girls to become pregnant
-The growth of lone/parent families, having benefits may mean more boys grow without a male role model which could increase crime rates
This threatens to essential functions of family for feels : successful, socialisation, and maintenance of work ethic in men
The New Right’s solution
cuts in welfare spending and high restrictions on who is eligible for these benefits
-This would mean taxes will also reduced and fathers have more incentive to work and provide for the family and prevent teen mothers
-Advocate policies to support nuclear families married > Cohabiting
-an absent father still responsible for children
-Help grow greater self-reliance
Evaluation of the New Right view
-feminists argue that this is an attempt to justify return to the traditional patriarchal nuclear family at subordinated women to men and confined to a domestic role
-It wrongly assumed that the patriarchal nuclear family is natural rather than socially constructed
-Abbott and Wallace argue that cutting benefits would simply drive more poor families into even greater poverty and make them even less self-reliant
-New right ignore the many policies that support and maintain the conventional route to family > undermine it
Conservative gov
(1979-97)
Margaret Thatcher
-banned the promotion of homosexuality by local authorities, and it included a ban on teaching homosexuality was an acceptable relationship
-Defined divorce as a social problem
-Emphasise continued responsibility of both parents of the divorce
BUT
-made divorce easier
-‘illegitimate’ children have the same rights as married parents
New Labour gov
1997-2010
-Like the new right also emphasised the need for parents to take responsibility for their children for example by introducing parenting orders for parents of children and young offenders
-Saw a family headed by a married heterosexual couple as the best environment for bringing up children.
BUT ALSO
Recognised that women now go out to work too
Favoured dual-earner neo-conventional family(Silva and Smart)
Chester
-longer maternity leave
-Working families tax credit- enabled parents to claim some tax relief on childcare costs
-The new deal: helping lone-parents to return to work with state intervention, such as welfare, taxation, minimal wage and supported alternatives to the conventional nuclear family, such a civil partnerships, outlawing, discrimination, and sexuality, unmarried, have the same right to adopt
Coalition gov:
2010-15
HAYTON divides the conservatives into two groups
-Modernisers: recognises the family are now more diverse, and put this into effect in their policies
-Traditionalists: favour a new right view and reject diversity as morally wrong
-introduced gay marriage
However the coalition failed to introduce policies that specifically promote the new right idea of a conventional heterosexual nuclear family
e.g. BROWNE found that two-parent families with children fared particularly badly as a result of the coalition’s tax and benefits policy
Feminism
The state perpetuates women’s subordination through the social policies by basing its policies on the nuclear family and not other family types
Create a self-fulfilling prophecy as a nuclear family becomes the norm and justifies the policy, making it difficult for other kinds of families in our society
Policies supporting the patriarchal family
-tax and benefits policies: may assume that husbands are the main wage earners, and that wife’s are their financial dependence, which can make it impossible for wives to claim Social Security benefits for their own since expected the husbands will provide
-childcare: gov pays for some that’s not enough for both parents to work for time and on timetables and holidays, unless additional childcare costs which restricts women from working and they are economically dependent on partners
-Care for the sick and elderly: often expected for middle-aged women, which prevents them from working, and become economically dependent on partners
Leonard
even when policies appear to support women, they may still reinforce patriarchal family and act as social control over woman
e.g. Longer maternity leave is more generous for women > paternity leave but this encourages the assumption of care of infants by mothers and maternity benefits are low and makes women economically dependent
Evaluation of feminist view
not all policies are directed at maintaining patriarchy
e.g. Equal pay and sex discrimination laws, the right of lesbians to marry, benefits for lone-parents, refuges for women escaping domestic violence and equal rights to divorce
-Rape within marriage was made a criminal offence in 1991
All these policies can be said to improve the position of women in the family and wider society
Eileen Drew and gender regimes
uses concept to describe how social policies can encourage and discourage gender inequality in families and at work
two types:
-familistic gender regimes
-individualistic gender regimes
explains a move between more individualistic gender regimes
Familistic gender regimes
based on traditional gender division, with a male breadwinner and female housewife and carer
e.g. In Greece, there is little state welfare or publicly funded childcare so women have to rely heavily on extended kin and there is a traditional division of labour
Individualistic gender regimes
policies based on the belief that husbands and wives should be treated the same
Wives are not seen to be financially dependent, so each have a separate entitlement to state benefits
e.g. In Sweden policies, treat husbands and wives as equally responsible for breadwinning and domestic work.
-equal benefits mean that women are less dependent on their husbands and have more opportunities to work
Marxist feminist views of gender regimes
Would be naive to assume that there is an inevitable march of progress towards gender equality
-since the global recession in 2008 cutbacks in government spending throughout Europe has led to pressure on women to take more responsibility for caring for family members as state retreats from providing welfare
-This is supported by a trend in the neoliberal welfare policies where families are encouraged to use the market > state to meet their needs(private pension and private elderly care)
Women may feel pressure to fulfil caring roles while cost is high, reducing opportunities for women
