Social policy

What is Social Policy?

A plan of action made by state agencies such as health, education and welfare, which affects family life.

Direct impact on the family

• The divorce reform act- Increased family diversity. (E.g. single-parent families, reconstituted families. It also empowered women).

• The availability of contraception- Controlled fertility, reduced family size and fertility levels.

• The legalisation of same sex marriage- Increased family diversity. 15% of gay couples are married.

Indirect impact on the family:

• Compulsory education act 1944- March of progress for women. Provided women with skills for future careers.

• The NHS- Provided paid professional roles for women that has empowered them instrumentally. (Nursing and midwifery used to be voluntary).

• Benefits ie. The welfare state- Increase in single parent families. Instrumental needs met by the state.

• The Equal Pay Act (1970)- Allowed more women to be instrumental.

Extreme Family Policy

• China’s One child Policy:

  • Aimed to discourage couples from having more than one child to tackle overpopulation.

  • Supervised by workplace family planning committees.

  • Women must seek permission to try to become pregnant, waiting lists.

  • Couples were given extra benefits, free childcare, higher tax allowances and priority to education and housing.

• Communist Romania

  • To try drive up birth rate which had been falling asleep living standards declined.

  • Restricted contraception and abortion.

  • Set up infertility treatment centres.

  • Made divorce more difficult.

  • Lowered marriage age to 15.

  • Unmarried or childless adults had to pay 5% more income tax.

• Nazi Germany

  • Encouraged the healthy and “racially pure” to breed a “master-race”

  • Sought to keep women out of the workplace, ‘Kitchen, children, church’

  • Compulsory sterilisation of 375,000 disabled people.

  • Restricting access to abortions and contraception.

Functionalism: Family Policy

Positive:

• Society is based on value consensus. Policy helps institutions meet their aims, which is for the good of its members and wider society.

• Fletcher argues policy on health, education and housing since the Industrial Revolution, supports the family in supporting its functions better.

• The NHS helps families take care of sick members.

Negative:

• However, not all family members benefit from social policy. Feminists argue that it reinforces patriarchy. E.g. maternity leave is more generous than paternity leave.

• Marxists argue that policies can be reversed, protecting the interests of the bourgeoisie ie. They will pay less tax. E.g. child benefit reduced to just two children.

New Right: Family Policy

Negative:

• New right policies are patriarchal and ignore the dark side of the family.

• Cutting benefits would drive more people onto poverty, not less.

• The nuclear family is a social construct. Some policies exist protecting the nuclear family, such as the marries couples tax allowance.

• Women in the Uk are more likely to have a baby over 40 than under 20. Teenage mums are folk devils and the public are encouraged to blame them for social problems.

Feminism: Family Policy

Positive:

• March of progress feminists (liberal) would argue that policy has made women’s lives better. Marital rape has been criminalised (1991), lesbians are able to marry and have children, the EPA and SDA have allowed women to escape their expressive role.

Negatives:

• Family policies reinforce patriarchy. Tax and benefit policies assume that money is pooled within a family, when in many cases, men use money as a form of control.

• Laws around childcare assume that women are more likely to work part-time or term time, restricting their access to higher pay jobs and career progression.

• Care for the elderly is rationed in the UK. Assuming that mostly middle class women will step in and provide care not just for their children, but their aging relatives to a free cost (pivot generation).

Gender Regimes.

AO1- Eileen Drew us the term gender regimes to describe how social policies in different countries can either encourage or discourage gender equality in the family.

Familistic gender regimes refer to policies based on the traditional division of labour.

Individualistic gender regimes refer to policies based on equality between sexes.

Individualistic (Sweden)

• 57% tax rate

• 68 weeks Mat/Pat leave

• 80% salary (up to 600pw)

• Childcare costs 4% icome

Familistic (UK)

• 40% tax rate

• 39 week maternity leave

• 10 days unpaid paternity leave

• 172 pounds per week

• Childcare 33%+ income

Troubled Families programme 2012

AO1- This was a direct social policy launched by the coalition government. This programme 120,000 troubled families in terms of high rates of :

• children who truant

• Anti- social behaviour

• Adults having never or rarely worked

• Domestic, drug and alcohol abuse.

Caseworkers work alongside troubled families and offer support and guidance networking health, education and police professionals.

AO2- This encouraged parents to carry out their instrumental and expressive roles. It aimed to help tackle drug and alcohol abuse, domestic abuse and instil discipline, a work ethic and greater cooperation with other agencies in society. Young people were worked in terms of health, wellbeing, education and staying out of trouble. It hoped to compensate for inadequate primary socialisation in the family.

AO3- The new right liked the policy as it challenged the emergence of the underclass. They criticised absentee fathers and their failure to meet instrumental needs- blaming them for criminality which costs the UK economy 9 billion pounds per annum. They also criticised absentee fathers parents for not ensuring their children go to schools- which leads to state dependency later in life.

Marxists dislike the policy as it fails to recognise that poverty and unemployment is a structural issue and that many people do not choose to be unemployed.

Post structuralists like Donzelot are critical because they see the policy as an extreme example of state surveillance on what policy makers define as the most problematic member of society. The policy fails to tackle the true cause of deviance.