social policy

• A social policy is

  • policies based on laws
• 2 ways social policy impact family life

  • compulsary education - allows parents to go to work
  • taxation - how much money is taken from families and how much is used for services to benefit families
• cross cultural examples of social policies

  • one child policy involves discouragement to couples to not have more than one child (contrasts soviet union + Nazi Germany
  • impacts - couples that comply get higher tax allowance - means more money can be spent benefiting their family. women feel pressured to be sterilized after first child.
• cross cultural examples of social policies

  • communist romania policy involves restrictions for contraception + abortion, infertility treatment centres set up. divorce is more difficult, age of legal marriage lowered to 15, unmarried + childless couples pay extra 5% tax.
  • impacts - couples Feel pressured to have children. discourages intimacy due to lack of contraception + abortion meaning sexual relationships stay in marriage, encourages traditional nuclear family
• cross cultural examples of social policies

  • Nazi family policy - restricted abortion + contraception, compulsory sterilisation for people deemed unfit to breed
  • impacts - lack of diversity, racism, no acceptance
• Functionalists

  • the state/ government acts in the interests of society as a whole
  • the welfare state supports the family to perform its functions more effectively eg health, education (fletcher 1936)
  • Eg - NHS means that the family can take care of their sick members with the help of doctors

  criticisms:

  • feminists - assumes all members benefit equally from social policies
  • marxists - assumes there is a march of progress - social policies can sometimes turn the clock backwards eg cutting welfare benefits to poor families
• New right

  New right

  • nuclear family is the best type - others cause distruption + disorder
  • New right influenced the conservarive government who were in poNer from 1979 - 1997

  Almond 2006

  • easier divorce undermines idea of marriage as a life long commitment
  • civil partnership + gay marriage discourages hetero marriage as an ideal
  • increased rights for unmarried couples lowers marriage institution

  Murray 1984/1990

  • providing benefits (eg council housing for unmarried, teen mothers and cash payments for lone parent families) encourages more dysfunctional family = reward
• New right

  • current poracies encourage a dependency culture not a self reliant one - threatens main functions of family: socialisation of children + maintenance of work ethics amongst men

  criticisms

  • believes all social policies are bad, but ignores that children acts has positively impacted families - gave more rights to children
  • cutting benefits puts poor families in a poorer state
  • feminists - attempts to return family to being patriarchal and tying women back to domestic roles
• Feminists

  • all social policies helped to maintain women's subordinate position and unequal divisions of labour
  • Land 1918 - policies based on what a 'normal’ family looks like: nuclear, male breadwinner, female homemaker - policies will reinforce patriarchy
  • tax and benefits policies assume woman is dependent on man, childcare
• Feminists

  Familistic gender regimes

  • Greece (eg) has little welfare state or publicly funded childcare - women have to rely on support from their extended kin (there is a traditional division of labour)

  individualistic gender regimes

  • in sweden, ment women equally share breadwinner tasks: having equal opportunities, parental leave
• Feminists

  Familistic gender regimes

  • Greece (eg) has little welfare state or publicly funded childcare - women have to rely on support from their extended kin (there is a traditional division of labour )

  individualistic gender regimes

  • in Sweden, men + women equally share breadwinner tasks: having equal opportunities, parental leave

  criticisms

  • not all policies are against women: equal pay act, sex discrimination act, benefits for lone parent families, equal rights to divorce
• conservative:

  1979 - 1997

  • banned promotion of homosexuality by local authorities
  • divorce = social problem
  • Set up child support agency (CSA) to enforce child maintenance payments
  • divorce easier to attain
  • gave illegitimate children same rights as those born in a marriage
• New labour

  1997-2010

  • civil partnership for same sex couples
  • unmarried couples had same adopting rights as married
  • outlawing discrimination of sexuality
  • longer maternity leave - gave right to request time off for family reasons
  • working family tax credits - tax relief on childcare costs
  • The New Deal - helped parents to return to work
  • minimum wage, taxation, welfare - wanted to relieve poverty
• coalition

  2010 - 2015

  • cut public spending - free money up to pay debt
  • increase taxes
  • gay marriage