Topic 7 - Families and social policy Flashcards
CHINA’S ONE CHILD POLICY: 1980-2015
Aim of the policy was to discourage couples living in urban areas to have more than one child, to reduce starvation caused by overpopulation.
Supervised by workplace family planning committees - women had to go to these and ask permission to try to become pregnant - there was often a waiting list.
Couples who complied with the policy got extra benefits e.g. free child healthcare and higher tax allowances, an only child had priority in education.
Couples who broke the agreement had to repay all allowances given to them, as well as pay a fine. Many women were pressured to be sterilised after their
first child. This policy was abandoned in 2015 - now the three child policy
COMMUNIST ROMANIA: 1980s
Aim of the policy, introduced in the 1980s, is to drive up birth rates.
Restricted contraception and abortion, set up infertility treatment centres, made divorce more difficult, lowered the legal age of marriage to 15 and made unmarried adults and childless couples pay an extra 5% income tax.
This meant that more children were
born to couples who could not afford
them.
Many of these were abandoned,
ending up in overcrowded orphanages
NAZI FAMILY POLICY: 1930s
In the 1930s, Germany employed a two-fold policy
On the one hand, it encouraged the healthy and supposedly ‘racially pure’ to breed a ‘master race’ e.g. by restricting access to contraception. Policy aimed to keep women out of the workforce, and confined them to ‘children, kitchen and church’ - they believed they were biologically suited to these roles
On the other hand, they also sterilised 375,000 disabled women, who they deemed ‘unfit to breed’ e.g. if they had “physical malformation, mental retardation, epilepsy, imbecility, deafness or blindness”. Most of them were later killed in concentration camps.
POLICIES AFFECTING THE FAMILY
Taxation policies e.g. how much is taken from families, child tax credit etc.
Changes to Income Support for Lone Parents since 2014
Welfare benefits
Housing policies
Policies regarding crime
POLICIES AFFECTING CHILDREN
Child benefits
Child protection laws
Child labour legislations
Compulsory schooling until 18 - ROSLA 2015
Age restrictions (for sex, marriage, working etc)
What is a social policy?
Social policies refer to laws made by the government
Social policies are very important as they regulate family life, influencing the structure of the family
Functionalist perspective - social policy
The state (government) act in the interests of society as a whole
Social policies are for the good of all
Social policies help families to perform their functions more effectively and make life better for all members
Functionalist Fletcher (1966)
Fletcher (1966) - the introduction of housing, health and education policies in the years since the industrial revolution has gradually led to development of a welfare state that supports the family in performing its functions effectively - this is a march of progress view (things are getting better)
FUNCTIONALISM - EVALUATION
Assumes two things:
All members of the family benefit equally from social policies – feminists disagree! Policies benefit men at the expense of women
- There is a ‘march of progress’ – Marxists argue policies can reverse progress i.e. welfare cuts to poor families
DONZELOT: POLICING THE FAMILY
Conflict view - policies are used by the government to control families - opposes the march of
progress view of Functionalists
Inspired by Foucalt’s (1976) concept of surveillance (observing and monitoring)
Professionals (doctors/social workers) exercise power over clients using expert knowledge to control
people
Donzelot applies this to family - professionals carry out surveillance of families - social workers,
health visitors and doctors use their knowledge to control and change families
Surveillance doesn’t target social classes equally - poor families are more likely to be seen as
‘problem families’, causing crime and anti-social behaviour. These are the families that are targeted
for ‘improvement’
Condry (2007) parents being forced to attend parenting courses for young offenders
the state controls and regulates families by imposing Parenting Orders through
the courts - parents of young offenders, truants or badly behaved children may be forced to attend
parenting courses to teach them the ‘correct’ way to bring up their children
DONZELOT: POLICING THE FAMILY Evaluation:
Marxists and feminists say he does not identify who benefits from policies of surveillance.
Marxists - say they benefit the capitalists class
Feminists - say they benefit men
THE NEW RIGHT VIEW ON SOCIAL POLICY AND THE FAMILY
New Right are strongly in favour of ‘traditional’ nuclear family: married, heterosexual couple, division of labour: female homemaker, male breadwinner
This family type is naturally self-reliant and capable of caring and providing for its members
They argue changes that have led to family diversity (e.g. divorce, same-sex partnerships, cohabitation, lone parents etc) are producing problems such as welfare dependency and crime
Brenda Almond (2006) NEW RIGHT
argues that state policies have undermined nuclear family:
Laws making Divorce easier - undermine the idea of marriage as a lifelong commitment
Civil partnership (2004) and Marriage (2014) Acts - sends the message that the state no longer sees heterosexual marriage as superior to other types
New Right Marriage
NR also point out increased rights of cohabiting couples (e.g. adoption & pension rights when a partner dies) make cohabiting more like marriage, sending the message that marriage is not special or better
New Right LONE PARENTS, WELFARE POLICY AND THE DEPENDENCY CULTURE
Murray (1984, 1990) argues that social policy has a major impact on family roles and relationships
‘Generous’ welfare benefits, like council housing for teenage mothers and cash payments for lone parents, undermine the traditional nuclear family and encourage deviant dysfunctional families and ‘dependency culture’ (people relying on the state to support them rather than being self-reliant)
New Right, The current welfare state offers ‘perverse incentives’ - meaning it rewards irresponsible and anti-social behaviour. For example:
Fathers see the state will maintain their children so will abandon responsibilities towards their family
Council housing provided for unmarried teenage mothers encourages teenage pregnancy
Growth of lone-parent families, encouraged by generous welfare benefits, results in boys growing up without a male role model and consequently more likely to turn to crime due to lack of a paternal authority figure
New Right: The current system threatens two essential functions that the family fulfil in society:
Successful socialisation of the young
The maintenance of work ethic in the young
THE NEW RIGHT’S SOLUTION
The New Right solution proposes cuts to welfare and tighter restriction on who is eligible for benefits (e.g. council housing for teen mothers and cash payouts for lone parents)
This in turn would lead to reduced taxes, providing an incentive for fathers to work to provide for their family.
It would also discourage teenagers from becoming pregnant.
NR would also advocate policies to support the nuclear family such as taxes that favoured married rather than cohabiting couples and making absent fathers financially responsible for their children.
In contrast to the Functionalist view that policies help families perform its functions, the New Right believe greater self reliance will enable the family to meet members needs most effectively - the less ‘interference’ by the state, the better!
THE EVALUATION OF THE
NEW RIGHT
Feminists argue New Right attempt to justify traditional patriarchal family structure which subordinates women
It wrongly assumes the nuclear family is ‘natural’ rather than socially constructed (created by society)
Abbot and Wallace (1992) argue cutting poverty would drive families into greater poverty make them even less self-reliant
There are many policies that support and maintain the Nuclear Family, rather than undermine it - the New Right ignore this
Conservative government (1979-1997) Influence of New Right
Thatchers section 28 - no promotion of homosexulaity
divorce = social problem
Child Support Agency - maintence payements by absent parents (usually the father)
opposing the views of the New Right;
making divorce easier
giving ‘illigitimate’ children the same rights as thoes born to married parents
New Labour government (1997-2010) New Right influence
Family is the bedrock of society, new right and new labour agree
parents take responsiblity for thier children, new right and new labour. Parenting Orders for truants and young offenders.
Smart and Silva, New labour rejected the New Rights single earner ideals (New Labour, women in work to)
New labour dual earner, Neo conventional family (robert Chester)
Longer maternity leave - both parents can work
Working families tax credit - parents cliaming tax reilf on childcare costs
The New Deal, helping lone parents return to work
The new right opposes state intervention, by re distributing income through taxes and benefits
More opposition to New right:
civil partnerships for same sex couples
giving unmarried couples the same rights to adopt as married couples
Outlawing discrimination on grounds of sexulaity.
The Coalition government (2010 – 2015)
New right influence
The conservaties have been long divided between what Hayton (2010) calls:
modernisers - who recognise that familes are now more diverse and are willing to reflect this in thier polices
traditionalists - who favour a New Right view and reject diveristy as morally wrong
The conservaties financial auesterity polices rejected the New Rights desire to cut public spending . However the coalition gov failed to introduce polices that specifically promote the New Right ideal of a conventional heterosexual nuclear family
Browne (2012) 2 parent familes with children fared particularly badly as a result of the governments tax and benefits polices.
Feminist perspective - social policy
The state and it’s policies help maintain women’s
subordinate position and the unequal division
of labour in the family
