Topic 7 Families and Social Policy (Family & Households)

Sociology AQA A-Level

What is social policy?

the plans and actions of the state agencies that aim to improve society and deal with social issues

Examples of family policy

• China 1 child policy - to control population, families were encouraged to have 1 child. Offered incentives like free child healthcare, higher tax cuts for those who complied

• Communist Romania - wanted higher birth rates, restricted contraception and abortion. Policies such as legal age of marriage being lowered to 15, childless couples pay 5% income tax to provoke birth rates

• Nazi Germany - encouraged healthy breeding of the ‘master race’, confine women to domestic labour, sterilised disabled people as they would not fit the ideals

• Democratic societies - Family is part of the private sphere, Britain, does not intervene on the family unless when things ‘go wrong’

Functionalist view of the family and social policy

Society built on harmony and consensus, free from major conflicts.

Policies = positive (helps family perform their functions)

Fletcher - health, education and housing policies led to the welfare state that supports families performing their functions effectively

e.g NHS doctors means that families can better able take care of its members when they are sick

Evaluations - Functionalist view on families and policies

• assumes all members of the family benefit equally (fem - benefits men)

• assumes there is a ‘march of progress’ (marxists - policies reverse progress made like cutting welfare benefits for the poor)

Donzelot: policing the family

conflict view of society, policy as a form of state power and control over families

• uses Foucalt’s surveillance to build the idea that power is spread everywhere in society

  (e.g doctors exercising power over their clients, turn them into ‘cases’)

social workers, health visitors and doctors use their knowledge to control and change families “policing of families’ - not equal of all social classes (target poor families)

Condry - state may seek to control and regulate family life by imposing compulsory Parenting Orders through courts e.g how to parent classes for misbehaving kids

• reject Func. march of progress view

Evaluations of Donzelot

Marxist/Feminists - failing to identify who benefits from such policies of surveillance

Marxists - social policies operate in interest of capitalist class

Feminist - men are the main beneficiaries

New Right view of social policy on the family

changes have led to greater family diversity which threatens the conventional nuclear family and produces social problems such as crime and welfare dependency

Creates a dependency culture which threatens the socialisation of children and the maintenance of the work ethic amongst men

New Right solutions to problems of social policies on the family

policy must be changed, cuts to welfare spending and tighter restrictions on who is eligible for benefits

e.g cutting welfare benefits would mean taxes could be reduced and would give fathers more incentive to work and to provide

policies to support traditional nuclear family, taxes that favour married couples, fathers are accountable to financially fund their children

less state intervention on families so families can meet its members’ needs most effectively

Almond (NR) - view on policies

Almond:

• laws making divorce easier undermines the idea of marriage

• civil partnerships/ marriages for homosexuals means the state no longer sees heterosexual marriage as superior to other domestic set-ups

• tax laws discriminate against conventional families (male breadwinner, female house-maker) - (pay more tax than dual-earner couples who have tax allowances)

• increased rights for unmarried cohabitants make cohabitation and marriage more similar which sends out the signal that the state does not see marriage as special or better

Murray (NR) view on social policy and family

critical of welfare policy. Providing ‘generous’ welfare benefits undermines conventional nuclear family and encourages deviant and dysfunctional family types that harm society

welfare benefits (‘perverse incentives’) - reward irresponsible behaviour

e.g fathers see that the state will financially provide for their child, they will abandon responsibilities

Evaluation of the New Right view on social policies on the family

• Feminists - attempt to justify a return to the traditional patriarchal nuclear family that subordinated women, confined them to their domestic role

• wrongly assumes the patriarchal nuclear family is ‘natural’ rather than socially constructed

• Abbot & Wallace - cutting benefits would drive the poor into more poverty, less self-reliant

• NR ignore policies that support and maintain the conventional nuclear family rather than undermine it

NR influence on policies (Conservatives 1979-97)

Thatcher - banned promotion of homosexuality by local authorities

divorce - social problem, responsibility of the parents to continue to support the child after divorce (Child Support Agency - enforce maintenance payments by absent parents) (favoured by NR)

making divorce easier, gave ‘illegitimate’ children the same rights as those born in married parents (opposed by NR)

NR influence on policies (New Labour 1997-2010)

Agreement (NR & NL) family is the bedrock of society - married heterosexual couple as best for bringing up a child

parents taking responsibility of their children (Parenting Orders for parents of truants and young offenders)

Disagreement (NR & NL) Silva & Smart - no longer male breadwinner role, acknowledge women as breadwinners too (dual-earner couples)

Chester: three months unpaid leave for both parents, Working Families tax credits, New Deal - helping lone parents to return to work

NR - no state intervention

NL - yes state intervention which can improve family lives

e.g welfare, taxation and minimum wage to lift children out of poverty redistribute wealth through taxes and benefits

Disagreement - NL support for civil partnerships for homosexual couples, unmarried couples allowed same rights to adopt, illegal to discriminate on grounds of sexuality in work place

New Right influence on policies (Coalition 2010-15)

Hayton: Conservatives split into two ideas

• modernisers - recognise families are diverse and willing to reflect this in policies

• traditionalists - favour a New Right View, reject diversity as morally wrong

Coalition - introduced gay marriage, (opposed by NR traditionalists)

Critics - Cons financial austerity policies reflected NR’s desire to cut public spending. Failed to introduce policies to promote the traditional, nuclear family.

Browne - two - parent families with children fared particularly badly as a result of the coalition’s tax and benefits policies

Feminism on social policies of the family

social institutions (the state) help to subordinate women’s position e.g:

• childcare - policies governing school timetables and holidays make it hard for parents to work full time unless they can afford extra childcare

• maternity leave policies; men given less time, women given more time → suggests it is still the women’s role to look after the children

Land - social policies assume ideal family is the patriarchal nuclear family, reinforce this family type at the expense of other types, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy

e.g if the state assumes ‘normal’ families based on marriage and offers tax incentives (not to cohabiting couples) → encourages marriage and discourage cohabitation

eval: not all policies are directed at maintaining patriarchy e.g equal pay & sex discrimination laws → improve women’s position in society

Feminism views on social policies of the family (Gender Regimes)

Drew - ‘gender regimes’ - social policies in different countries can encourage or discourage gender equality in the family

• familistic gender regime: policies based on traditional gender division between male breadwinner and female housewife and carer

  e.g Greece - little state welfare, traditional division of labour

• individualistic gender regimes - policies based on equality between men and women

  e,g Sweden - welfare services, women are less dependent on their husbands and have more opportunities to work

EU movement away from traditional family to equal family

eval: publicly funded childcare is expensive, no differentiation as to who should fund it and who should benefit

e.g global recession 2008 cutbacks to government spending, more pressure on women to to take more responsibility for caring for family members as the state retreats from providing welfare

Neo-liberal welfare policies - families encouraged to use the market rather than the state to meet needs e.g private pension and private care of the old