New Right and the Family

What is the New Right?

• More allied to political movements than sociological ones, the New Right took inspiration from functionalist ideas

• Closely linked to Conservatives in the UK and Republicans in the USA, New Right ideas rose to prominence in the Late 1970s through to present day

• Reduced state intervention, personal responsibility and traditional values

What is the New Right’s view on the family?

• Argued that progressive policies throughout the 1960s and 1970s had led to the decline of traditional family values

• Increases in divorce, lone-parent families and permissive policies relating to reproductive rights and sexuality have seen the influence of family decline

• Looking back on a ‘golden age’ of family life, stable family structures that could provide for their own needs through employment

Who is Charles Murray?

• Murray argued that state spending on benefits had created a form of welfare dependency

• Created a generation of ‘idle young men’ who lacked father figures and were the formation of an underclass

• The underclass developed norms and values that differed from the rest of society, demonstrating criminal and antisocial behaviours

What are the influences on the family policies?

• Creation of CSA to make sure fathers paid support for their children

• Increased tax allowances for married couples

• Lower taxation to enable families to support themselves

• Reduction of state benefits- caps on housing benefit, 2-child policy

• Section 28- Schools not allowed to teach about homosexuality

• Education- fines on parents for removing children from school

• Crime policies- Introduction of parenting classes for parents of antisocial children

• Their policies aimed to promote personal responsibility for the behaviour of families

What are the influences on the neo-liberal economics?

• New Right ideas were influenced by neo-liberal economics

• Lower state spending and more personal choice and responsibility

• Reduction in benefits creates an incentive to work- even if it is for low wages

• This allows the family to have greater personal responsibility for their family

What are the evaluations of the New Right?

• Feminists argue that female lone-parent families are being scapegoated for structural inequalities in society

• Lone parents are more likely to end up in poverty, even when at work, as a result of cuts to state spending

• Critics state that the New Right is focused on the economy rather than the social aspect of society and can lead to the marginalisation of social groups