families and social policy

what is social policy

the plans and actions set out by the government

• health and social service

• welfare and benefit system

• schools and other public bodies

what can family be regarded as

the family is sometimes regarded as a private sphere in which the state should not interfere. however, there is no doubt that in Britain a number of state policies have a direct and indirect impact upon the family and that the government sometimes deliberately tries to intervene in aspects of family life.

how can the state affect family life

• education- FSM can give the family a helping hand making them less independent

• taxation- marriage tax allowance

• housing policy- help to buy council house scheme

• legal changes- changes in divorce laws and same sex marriage

• health and welfare- welfare can provide parents with help like NHS

what are social policies like in the UK

governments face the dilemma of whether they accept these trends and adopt policies which try to stop these changes and even reverse them. there is often no agreement on what the best family policies are, and whether the polices adopted should encourage people to live in some family structures and discourage others

what are the main types of social policies specifically aimed at families

1. those that are aimed at providing direct material support like benefits

2. to help parents balance the demands of paid employment and family life- paternity leave, early years childcare

china’s one child policy

• from 1970s until 2015, the Chinese government’s population control policy aimed at discouraging children from having more than one child

• couples who complied with the policy got extra benefits, such as free child healthcare and higher tax allowances. an only child also got priority in education and housing later in life

• couples who broke their agreement to have only one child had to repay the allowances and pay a fine. women faced pressure to undergo sterilisation after their first child

• in 2015 a two child policy was introduced and this was increased to three children in 2021, amid concern about demographic imbalances.

communist Romanian

the communist government in Roumania in the 1980s introduced a series of policies to drive up the birth rate which had been falling as living standards declined

it 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

Nazi family policy

in Nazi Germany in the 1930s, the state persuaded a twofold policy. on the one hand, it encouraged the healthy and supposedly ‘racially pure’ to breed a ‘master race’ by restricting abortion and contraception.

official policy sought to keep woman out of the workforce and confine them to ‘children. kitchen and church’ the better to perform their biological role

on the other hand, the state compulsorily sterilised 375,000 disabled people that it deemed unfit to breed on grounds of ‘physical malformation, mental retardation, epilepsy, imbecility, deafness or blindness’. many of these people were later murdered in Nazi concentration camps.

democratic societies

By contrast with these extreme examples, some people may argue that in democratic societies such as Britain, the family is a private sphere of life in which the gov does not need to intervene, expect perhaps when things go wrong, e.g. in the case of child abuse.

however, sociologists argue that in fact, even in democratic societies, the state’s social polices play a very important role in shaping family life.

whats a different perspective on the relationship between the family and state policy

Donzelot: policing the family

rather than consensus view of policy as benefiting the family (functionalist) Donzelot has a conflict view of society and he sees policy as a form of state power and control over families.

What theory does Donzelot use

Foucaults concept of surveillance. Foucault sees power not just as something held by the government or state, but as diffused throughout society and found within all relationships.

What does Fouclaut see professionals ‘job’ to be

he sees professionals such as doctors and social workers as excising power over their clients by using their expert knowledge to turn them into ‘cases’ to be dealt with.

How does Donzelot apply Fouclauts theory to the family

he argues that social workers, health visitors and doctors use their knowledge to control and change families. Donzelot calls this ‘the policing of families’

where is this surveillance targeted

Surveillance is not targeted equally on all social classes. Poor families are more likely to be seen as ‘problem’ families and the cause of crime and anti-social behaviour. these are the families that professionals target for ‘improvement’

what does Condry note

Condry notes the state may seek to control and regulate family life by imposing compulsory Parenting Orders through the courts. Parents of young offenders, truants or badly behaved children may be forced to attend parenting classes to learn the ‘correct’ way to bring up their children

What view does Donzelot reject

the functionalists’ march of progress view that social policy and the professionals who carry it out have created a better, freer or moree humane society. instead he sees social policy as a form of state control of the family

how does Donzelot show the importance of professional knowledge as a form of power and control

by focusing on the micro level of how ‘caring professionals’ act as agents of social control through their surveillance of families

how is Donzelot criticised

Marxists and feminists criticise Donzelot for failing to identify clearly who benefits from such polices of surveillance.

Marxists argue that social policy generally operate in the interest of the capitalist class

feminists argue that men are the main beneficiaries