Social policies and families.

Question 1

What group of sociologists were the conservative government influenced by ?

Answer 1

New Right.

Question 2

How did the New Right influence the conservatives in terms of family ?

Answer 2

Preference for nuclear families, encouraging individual and parental responsibility, encouraging mothers to stay at home (fufilling traditional family roles). concerns that the welfare system might encourage non traditional family forms and irresponsible behaviour.

Question 3

What did Margaret Thatcher (1988) describe the family as being ?

Answer 3

“The building blocks of society”.

Question 4

What did Margaret Thatcher’s views on the family echo ?

Answer 4

Functionalist and New Right.

Question 5

What policies about the family were developed under the conservatives and what years ?

Answer 5

The Children Act (1989), The child support agency (1993), Married men’s tax allowance, proposed changes to divorce rules, section 28, back to basics

Question 6

What did the children act (1989) do / aims ?

Answer 6

Outlined the rights of children.

Question 7

What did the child support agency policy (1993) do / aims ?

Answer 7

Ensured that the father of the children paid maintenance for the upbringing of their children.

Question 8

What did the married men’s tax allowance policy do / aims ?

Answer 8

Higher tax - free allowance for married men.

Question 9

What did the New Right do that involved taxes to try and encourage traditional family structures ?

Answer 9

They tried to maintain a tax allowance for men whose wives did not work.

Question 10

What did the proposed changes to divorce rules policy do / aims ?

Answer 10

Made divorce more difficult, the plan was to have an enforced cooling off period to see if the married couple could work it out and stay together, however the plan was never put into place due to opposition and impracticality of enforcing the policy.

Question 11

What did the section 28 policy do / aims ?

Answer 11

Prevented the local government from “promoting” homosexuality, schools could not teach students about homosexuality. (“The acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship”)

Question 12

What did back to basics policy do / aims ?

Answer 12

Promoted traditional family values.

Question 13

What did Marxists argue about the New Rights views and what was an example to back up / justify this point?

Answer 13

That they are simply an ideology to justify policies that benefit the ruling class and capitalism. E.g. the child support agency, despite the new right saying that the goal was to encourage parent responsibility it was really about cutting state expenditure therefore cutting taxes for the rich.

Question 14

What were the conservatives ideology and why wasn’t it being accepted very well ?

Answer 14

Their ideology was to enforce / protect the traditional family values but they were trying to do this during a time period when there was the largest growth in family diversity, and if their aim was to defend the traditional nuclear family then they failed in this area.

Question 15

Who came into power in 1997 and what party did they belong to ?

Answer 15

Tony Blair who belonged to the New Labour government.

Question 16

What policy continued in the New Right approach ?

Answer 16

Cuts to lone parent benefits.

Question 17

What was the aim of cuts to lone parent benefits ?

Answer 17

The idea that single parents should go to work while the government would ensure that there was more cheap / free childcare as New Labour wanted to promote mothers doing more work, children receiving more professional childcare to facilitate this.

Question 18

What policies were introduced under New Labour that helped families rather than trying to shape the ideal family and what years?

Answer 18

Working family tax credits, paid paternity leave, civil partnership act (2005), adoption and childcare act (2002), and the repeal ( withdrawal) of section 28 (2003).

Question 19

What did the working family tax credits policy do / aims ?

Answer 19

Removed a tax incentive for couples to get married and provided a tax allowance for families with children regardless of whether the parents were married or not to help pay for childcare.

Question 20

What did the paid paternity leave policy do / aims ?

Answer 20

Men were able to get 2 weeks of paid parental leave.

Question 21

What did the civil partnership act do / aims ?

Answer 21

Allowed same sax relationships to be recognised on the same terms as marriage.

Question 22

What did the adoption and children’s act do / aims ?

Answer 22

Allowed same sex couples to adopt children.

Question 23

Despite New Labour bringing in these policies to help families what did they overall believe ?

Answer 23

That marriage was the best basis for family life.

Question 24

Why were the New Labour’s policies criticised by others ?

Answer 24

Because some of their policies included their desire to work to replace the welfare system in terms of encouraging women to work (supporting symmetrical family) BUT it was simply an approach to cut public spending on welfare.

Question 25

What government came into power in 2010 ?

Answer 25

The coalition government.

Question 26

What 2 parties did the coalition consist of ?

Answer 26

Conservative, liberal.

Question 27

What were the conservatives from 2010 - 2015 ideas / beliefs ?

Answer 27

They had a mixture of maintaining New Right approach of 1979 - 1997 whilst having more modern attitudes.

Question 28

What were the liberal democrats ideas / beliefs ?

Answer 28

They had a more liberal approach, accepting alternative family types.

Question 29

What policy did the coalition government pursue to promote the nuclear family and why?

Answer 29

Removing the couples penalty to ensure that the benefits system did not include an incentive for couples to break up in order to receive more benefits.

Question 30

What policies did the coalition government introduce to try to acknowledge and facilitate more modern notions of family life ?

Answer 30

Shared parental leave, equal marriage.

Question 31

What did shared parental leave policy do / aims ?

Answer 31

Meant that parental leave could be shared equally between men and women.

Question 32

What did the equal marriage policy do / aims ?

Answer 32

Same sex marriage was brough in despite there being lots of opposition from traditionalists part of the conservatives and the church of England made a special exception that allowed for same sex couples to get married just not in the church of England.

Question 33

What did the introduction of same sex marriages under the coalition government lead to ?

Answer 33

Inequality in UK law that same sex couple can choose a civil partnership or marriage whereas this is not available to heterosexual couples.

Question 34

Under the coalition government what happened to the introduced policy of shared parental leave ?

Answer 34

Only 2 percent of couples share parental leave and only 40 percent of fathers use the two weeks that they were entitled two with the rest not taking advantage of additional parental leave after the 2 weeks.

Question 35

What policies have the government put into place since 2015 ?

Answer 35

Married couples tax allowance, child tax credits restricted to two children.

Question 36

Since the married couples tax allowance has been re - instated since 2015 what has changed since it was last introduced ?

Answer 36

Only one member has to pay tax however this policy applies to all married couples (regardless of gender and sexual orientation) and civil partnerships, and it doesn’t matter who pays it or whether they are the breadwinner of the family or not.

Question 37

What have the changes to the benefit system by the coalition and conservative government suggested ?

Answer 37

That children are the responsibility of their parents until they reach their mid 20’s which is quite a significant shift from what it used to be.