Social policy Flashcards
What is social policy?
A social or state policy is any attempt by the government to deal with a social problem, such as poverty, unemployment and homelessness or to ensure that social needs such as a happy family life are achieved
What does David Morgan say the government are concerned about?
- levels of gov expenditure, extent of state provision
- long term unemployment within families
- rising divorce rates
- increasing crime convictions of youths and anti social behaviour
- link between family and the economy
Links between government social policy and family life
1969 Divorce Reform Act
1970 Equal Pay act
1975 Sex Discrimination Act
How did the Divorce Reform Act impact on family life?
- marriages end, decrease empty shell marriages
- children and childhood experiences fluctuate stress n conflict
- easier to divorce, rise in serial monogamy
- more lone-parent and re-constituted families, one person households
How did the Equal Pay Act and Sex Discrimination Act impact on family life?
- women working after having children increases
- greater affluence amongst families
- changing roles within family
- more dual worker households, less domestic division of labour
- egalitarian relationships, symmetrical family
What do left wing social democrats believe?
Collectivism
- state should have a role in family life
- regard nuclear family as desirable
- support alternative family structures
Support individualistic gender regimes (Drew)
What do right wing new right believe?
Individualistic
Neoliberalism/ neoconservatism
traditionalists, ‘rolling back the state’
- nuclear family in decline is causing social problems
- state should paly a limited role in family life
- regard nuclear family as ideal
- alternative family structures are bad and inadequate
Support familistic gender regimes (Drew)
What is a familistic gender regime?
Looks at a persons family status when deciding benefit entitlement
What is an individualistic gender regime?
Sees a person as an individual when deciding their benefit entitlement
(married/children)
The conservative government 1979-1997
Failed to introduce free/reduced-cost childcare
- assume mother’s will look after child
Many benefits cut, single parent
- discourage dependency reinforce nuclear family
The Child Support Agency established
- divorced parents support, other person pays, roll back gov payment
Tax and welfare benefits for married couples
- encourage traditional NF marriages (reward)
Banned promotion of homosexuality in education
- heterosexual m/f roles, NF reinforcement
Privatised care for elderly (not provided by state)
- children/adult responsible for elderly care
Matrimonial proceedings act
- contradictory, gain votes, made divorce easier
How does the conservative government show about their views on family life?
Reinforced formation and maintenance of the nuclear family as they believed it to be ideal
- made it difficult for people to move away from it
- discourage diversity (same-sex marriage)
- family is responsible for looking after itself
The New Labour government 1997-2010
More generous maternity and paternity leave
- fathers more equal to childcare
Free childcare for 2.5 year olds
- both parents have a chance to work
Parenting orders for parents of truants and young offenders
- parents responsible for child behaviour
Sure start centres
- support rather than punishment, WC areas
Civil Partnership Act
- same-sex same legal, more equal, encourage diversity
Working family tax credit
- tax relief on childcare costs, encourage work
What did the New Right say about the New Labour policies?
The policies helped to create a nanny state
- people expect to be looked after by the state and place less responsibility on themselves
Which New labour policies are Modernist (neo conventional view and accepting of diversity)?
Higher welfare/social democratic
- Sure Start centres (WC areas provided convenient access to support services, plus new deal for lone parents back at work)
- Civil partnership act
- Free childcare for 2.5year olds
- more paternity leave
- family tax credit
Which New labour policies favour a traditional view (more similar to New Right)?
Parenting orders for parents of truants and young offenders
The Coalition government 2010-2015
Child benefit means-tested
- money into mothers account, look at earnings per year
Legal Aid cut
- no financial support so families stayed together, less on state spending
Planned to tackle exposure to porn online
- adults responsibility for child
Focus on problem families (Troubled families programme)
- ‘problem support worker’
Austerity, cut in public spending
- Bradshaw, led to child poverty
Marriage Act 2013 same sex couples
- more family diversity
Which Coalition policies are Modernist?
Same sex couples marriage act
- equal status to married heterosexual couples
- diverse family structures just as conventional
Which Coalition policies are Traditionalist?
Child benefit becoming means-tested
- rolling back the state
Cut legal aid
- low income families cannot access divorce
Tackle porn/problem families
Austerity
- public spending cut
According to Charles Murray what is the cause of family breakdown?
Dissolution
- divorce is easier
Dysfunction
- adults do not take responsibility of their child
Dadlessness
- fathers losing contact/refusing to take responsibility
What factors could lead to families being identified for the Troubled Families Programme?
- crime/antisocial behaviour
- children persistently truant from school
- adults who don’t work or long term unemployed, welfare dependent
- high cost to public state/purse as they claim more e.g. poor health
How have historians criticised the Troubled families programme?
It was misleading as they create an inaccurate picture as they implied British past as filled with ‘happy untroubled families’
Evidence shows previous generations going back 200 years expressed concerns with troubled families
Has the Troubled families programme been successful?
- helped 1/4 of families
- overall unsuccessful 3/4 still commit crimes, are being excluded from schools and have no jobs
- the majority of families have not been ‘turned around’
What does historian Levitas say?
- language used by NR is vindictive
- stereotyping poor families
- blaming them
- out of their control, economic policies
What do functionalists say about family policy?
- social policy that supports the family is good
Durkheim- welfare policies have allowed the family to become more specialised, structural differentiation - ease financial pressures, allows them to focus on the most important task of primary socialisation
What do functionalists think about social policies that support family diversity?
Not too positively, most efficient unit is the nuclear family, headed by a male and female
What are Marxists views on social policy?
View it with suspicion
- any social policies that offer financial support to proletariat families are just a ‘smokescreen’
- distract their attention away from exploitation
What do Marxists Losch and Danzelot say about social policies?
Some are designed to undermine parental authority
- to ‘fragmentate’ the proletariat
- Troubled families programme
- control poor families
What do feminists say about social policy on the family?
Both support and criticise existing family policies
What social policies do feminists support?
Any that support a women’s decision to leave the patriarchal nuclear family
- child tax credits
What social policies do liberal feminists criticise?
Some reinforce traditional gender stereotypes
- unequal maternity/paternity pay leave
Support individualistic gender regimes, less traditional
How do New right view social policy?
Conservative social policies that reinforce the nuclear family are positive (benefit cuts to single parents)
View New Labour government policies negatively as they encourage dual earner families- free childacre
do not support family diversity
What does Danzelot (conflict theory) say about state policies?
uses Foucalt’s concept of surveillance (observing and monitoring)
- professional such as doctors and social workers exercise control over clients using their expert knowledge to turn them into cases
‘the policing of the family’
- poorer families are targeted for this control and are seen as problem families targeted for ‘improvement’
e.g. truancy, exclusion rates, GPs store info on systems, all controlling
Cross-cultural and historical comparisons of family policy
1- China
2- India
3- United states
1- China’s social policy comparison
One-child policy
- fined for having more than one child, an amount 3-10 times the household income
- poor families struggled
- force women to get abortions
- sterilise surgically
- girls aborted or abandoned, preference of male children
2- India’s social policy comparison
Tremendous birth rate and disproportionately young population
- good economically, bad for resources
- paid the equivalent of $106 to couples to wait 2 years to have their first child
- other states made having more than 2 children a disqualification from holding public office
3- United State’s policy comparison
Low fertility rate
- breeding ‘desirable’ traits
- forcibly sterilising those with disabilities and MH illnesses
- the eugenics movement
What policies affect marriage?
Tax breaks for married couples
Same-sex marriage Act
What policies affect childbearing?
Better contraception (abortion)
Factory Acts?/child labour laws (economic asset to dependent/liability)
What policies affect family diversity?
Civil partnerships/same-sex marriage laws
Divorce laws
Child support agency
What policies affect equality in family life?
Equal Pay Act
Shared maternity/paternity leave
What policies affect childhood?
Factory Act/child labour laws
Compulsory education extended
Childcare
