Socio-Political impacts on family Flashcards
What 3 main socio-economic changes did Nickie Charles identify in the 20th century?
Did she notice major changes in the family within this century? What change did she note?
What economic change did Evans and Chandler identify within the family? What does this mean for parents?
-Rapid technological development.
-Women entering the workforce on a large scale
-Greater equality of opportunity.
-Charles concluded changes in the family were fairly minor. But one change she did note was that extended families could maintain contact over much greater geographical distances.
-Evans and Chandler noted a significant increase in disposable income for families;this means parents have to make decisions about buying products for their children that previoius generations never had to consider.
What is the most significant economic and social change in recent decades?
What impacts has this had on the family?
What effect do Mitsos and Browne argue this has had on men?
-Globalisation.The increasing interconnectedness of the world.
-Economic change has caused manufacturing jobs to leave the UK, including a possible crisis of masculinity(Mitsos and Browne) for boys and men who no longer have clear roles.
-Immigration has caused an increasingly multicultural society. This has contributed to changes in the structure of the family and family diversity.
-Social media and technological changes have also allowed families to keep in close contact despite large geo distances.
What two PM’s were greatly influenced by New Right thinkers? (1979-97)
What did they encourage?What were they concerned about?
-Thatcher and Major.
-Encouraged individual and parental responsibility, mothers to stay at home, had a preference for nuclear families.
-They were concerned that the welfare system might encourage non-traditional family forms and irresponsible behaviour.
What did Thatcher describe the family as?
What policies did Thatcher and John Major pass to support this? Children policies? Nuclear family promotion policies?
What campaign did Major lead for family values?
-Thatcher described the family as ‘the building block of society’.
-The Children Act 1989. -Outlined the rights of children.
-The Child Support Agency, 1993-Ensured absent fathers paid maintenance for their children.
-Married Men’s Tax Allowance- Lowered taxes for men whose wives do not work(to encourage stay-at-home mothers).
-Divorce reform- Planned to introduce a one-year ‘cooling off’ period before people could divorce.
-Section 28- Law restricting education about gay relationships.
-‘Back to Basics’ Major began a campaign to encourage ‘Victorian family values’.
Why was the policies of Thatcher and John Major criticised?Marxists? Liberal feminists?
-Despite the importance of family values to New Right politicians, there was not a great deal of ground breaking family policy in this period.
-Marxists argue that new Right ideas are just ideology. I.e. while the Child Support Agency may seem designed to encourage parental responsibility, they would say its real purpose was to just cut public spending and therefore lower taxes for the wealthy.
-The main trend at the time was more diversity, more women in work; the policy was ‘holding back the tide’.
How did New Labour and Tony Blair continue with New Right policy?
How did New Labour proceed with policies of change? New preferred family type? Changes for lgbt?
-Continuity included:
Cuts to lone parent benefits: This policy focused on trying to get lone mothers into work, rather than receiving benefits.
-Change included:
-Working family tax credits; replaced the married man’s tax allowance no longer incentivising one partner to remain at home and instead recognising dual earner households.
-Paid paternity leave: introduced 2 weeks paid paternity leave in 2003.
- A range of legislation recognising gay relationships and same-sex families, equal age of consent 2001, Adoption and Children’s Act 2002, repealing Section 28 2003 and the Civil Partnership Act 2005.
What are the criticisms of New Labour family policy? Did it truly promote family diversification? Policies relating to lone parents?
Were the reforms far reaching enough?
-While the Labour governments did introduce policies that acknowledged family diversity, the gov’t did continue to hold the official position that marriage was the best basis for the family(at the time only nuclear). They retained the idea of the traditional nuclear family being ideal.
-Whilst gov’t defended its policies in relation to lone parents on the basis of encouraging enabling people to return to work, including with improved access to childcare, critics suggested it was just about cutting welfare payments rather than helping lone parents.
-Some say gov’t did not go far enough-i.e. the Civil Partnerships Act could be seen as a missed opportunity for full marriage equality that did not arrive unitl 9 years.
-However, the impact of policies to allow gay couples to effectively marry and adopt should not be underestimated.
Who led the coalition gov’t? What PM?
What style policies did they combine?
What New Right policies were introduced?
Liberal?
-Conservative led.
-PM was David Cameron.
-Combined New Right and Liberal style policies.
-New Right policies:
Removing the so-called couples’ penatly(Ensured it would never be beneficial for breakups).
-Liberal policies:
Shared parental leave: Allowed parental leave to be shared between both parents.
Equal marriage: 9 years after the Civil Partnership Act, gay couples could get married.
Why was coalition gov’t family policies criticised?
-The main focus of the gov’t was cutting public spending, but there were significant areas of social policy, not least equal marriage.
-Shared parental leave has not been taken up to the extent as was expected, with women still taking the lion’s share of parental leave and many fathers not even taking 2 weeks. Changing attitudes and behaviour requires more than change in legislation.
What reforms to family policy have there been since 2015?
-Married couple’s tax allowance: Similar to married men’s tax allowance(people get tax break if one partner is not working) but the policy no longer states which partner must stay home.
-Child tax credits restricted to two children: Families can only receive tax credits for their first two children. While this is a cost-saving measure, it was sold as being designed to disincentivise low-income families from
having too many children.
-Pushes towards making children the responsibility of their parents until they are 25.
