families and social policy

• china one child policy rule

  • 1970s - 2015 (2 children then increased to 3 children in 2021)
  • supervised by workplace family planning committees - seek their permission to try to become pregnant
  • couples who complained with the policy got extra benefits - free childcare and higher tax allowance
  • only child get priority in education and housing later in life
  • couples who broke their agreement- repay the allowances and pay a fine
  • women faced pressure to undergo sterilisation after their first child
• Communist romania 


  1980 - restrict contraception and abortion, set up infertility treatment centres, made divorce more difficult, lower legal age of marriage to 15, unmarried and childless people pay extra 5% income tax

  • this was to drive up birth tatem which had been falling as living standards declined
• Nazi family 'twofold' policy

  1930

  • encourage healthy and 'racial pure' to breed a 'master race'
  • restrict abortion and contraception
  • confine women to 'children and church'
  • the state compulsorily sterilised 375,000 disabled people that deemed unfit to breed
• democratic societies (britain)


  • family is private sphere of live where government can't intervene unless something goes wrong like child abuse
• Functionalist perspectives on families and social policies (consensus view)

  • society built on harmony and consensus and free from major conflicts
  • policies help families perform their functions more effectively
  • Fletcher - health, education and housing policies since the industrial revolution gradually led to development of the welfare state that supports family in performing its functions more effectively
  • National Health services (families can take care of its member when sick more better)
• criticism of functionalist view

  • assumes all members of the family befits equally - feminist argue policies benefit men at the expense of women
  • assumes there is a 'march of preogress' - marxist - policies can also turn the clock back and reverse progress like cutting welfare benefits to poor families
• Donzelot (1977) : policing the family (conflict view)

  • policy is a form of state power and control over families by not only government or state but throughout societies and within all relationships
  • social workers, health visitors and doctors use their knowledge to control and change families (policing of families)
  • poor families are targeted for improvement
  • condry (2007) - state imposes compulsory parenting orders through the court
  • Donzelot - social policy as a form of state control of the family
  • criticism - fails to identify who benefits from policies of surveillance
• The new right


  page 236-237