social policy

• social policy

  plan / action put in place by government

  -tackle social issue / improve lives
• china's one child policy

  -aimed to discourage couples having more than one chikd

  -women seek permission to try become pregnant

  -complying couples get extra benefits

  -breaking agreement means repaying allowances & paying fine

  -women pressured to undergo sterilisation
• benefits for couples in china's one child policy

  -free child healthcare

  -higher tax allowances
• Nazi Germany family policy

  -encourage racially pure policy for German's to breed master race

  -women perform biological role of having children

  -get rid of 'substandard' people to strengthen master race

  -375,000 disabled people sterilised

  -single men & childless families taxed > poverty
• factors in Nazi Germany's family policy

  -law of the enforcement of marriage > newly weds given 1000 mark

  loan, keep 250 marks for each child

  -mother's cross > awards for women who had certain number of

  children

  -lebensborn > encouraged children to be born via SS men to create

  Aryan race

  -three K's > children, kitchen, church
• Communist Romania

  -increase population

  -abortion & contraception illegal

  -divorce made difficult

  -legal marriage age lowered to 15
• outcome of Communist Romania

  -birth rate almost doubled

  -childrens needs not met
• democratic societies > 21st century Britain

  -family = private sphere of life

  -government doesn't intervene unless something goes wrong

  -more emphasis on women staying home
• functionalist view on social policy

  -state acting on interests of society as whole

  -social policies good for all

  -policies help families to perform functions effectively
• Fletcher - functionalism

  -social policy should be there to help families perform functions

  -carried out mainly through state welfare
• criticisms of functionalist view

  -assumes everyone in family benefits equally

  > feminists argue benefits men at womens expense

  -assumes there's march of progress, steadily making families

  better

  > marxists argue policies can reverse progress
• Denzelot's view on social policy

  -sees policy as form of state power & control over families

  -sees power as diffused throughout society & found within all relationships (Foucault's concept of surveillance)

  -professionals exercise power over clients by using expert knowledge > control families

  -poor seen as 'problem' families & cause of crime & anti-social behaviour

  -state seek to control & regulate family life
• strengths of Denzelot's view

  -shows importance of professional knowledge as form of power & control
• criticism of Denzelot's view

  -marxists & feminists criticise for failing to identify who clearly benefits from policies

  > marxists argue SP operates in interests of capitalist class

  > feminists argue men are main beneficiaries
• the new right's view on social policy

  -strongly in favour of conventional, traditional nuclear family

  -changes in social policy led to greater family diversity

  -threatening nuclear family

  -easier divorce = undermine marriage being lifelong commitment

  -civil partnership for homosexual couples = heterosexual no longer

  superior

  -tax laws discriminate against conventional families with sole

  breadwinner
• Murray


  -critical of welfare policy as providing generous welfare benefits undermines nuclear family

  -encourages deviant & dysfunctional family types

  -benefits perverse incentives
• Murray - benefits perversing incentives - new right


  -fathers see state will maintain their children > abandon

  responsibilities to family

  -providing council housing for unmarried teenage mothers >

  encourages young girls to get pregnant

  -growth of lone-parent families encouraged by generous benefits

  > boys grow up without male role model > rising crime rates
• dependency culture

  -individuals become dependent on state to support then

  -rather than self reliance

  -current social policies encourage this
• depedency culture threatens 2 essential functions - new right

  -successful socialisation of the young

  -maintenance of work ethnic among young men
• solution to welfare benefits - new right

  -policy must be changed

  -cuts in welfare spending & tighter restrictions on eligibility for benefits

  -advocate policies to support nuclear families > taxes that favour

  married couples & making absent fathers financially

  responsible
• criticisms of new rights view on social policy

  -feminists > attempt to justify return to nuclear family

  -wrongly assumes nuclear family is 'natural' rather than socially

  constructed

  -cutting benefits drives poor families to greater poverty > even less

  self-reliant

  -ignores many policies that support & maintain nuclear family
• strengths of new right view on social policy

  -cutting welfare means taxes lowered
• conservative government - policies

  -ban on promotion of homosexuality

  -divorce is 'social problem'

  -conversely, divorce later made easier & children born out of marriage given same rights
• labour - policies

  -agreed nuclear couples were the best

  -policies favoured dual-earner, neo-conventional families

  -support for alternatives to conventional couples
• coalition government - policies

  -modernists vs traditionalist conservatives

  -increased antagonism in conservative party
• feminism view on social policy

  -policies help maintain women's subordinate position

  -there's policies supporting patriarchal family
• policies supporting patriarchal family

  -tax & benefits policy > assume husbands are main wage earner

  & women independent

  -childcare > government doesn't pay enough for parents to work

  full time

  > timetables & holidays make hard for parents to work full-time

  > women restricted from working

  > become economically dependent on partner

  -care for sick & elderly > assume family will provide care

  > middle-aged women will provide

  > prevents working full-time

  > increases economic independence on partner
• Leonard 


  -even when policies appear to support women, may still reinforce patriarchal family

  -maternity leave benefits women, also reinforces patriarchy

  >assumes care of infant is mothers responsibility

  >maternity much longer than paternity

  >increasing mothers independence

  -child benefit paid to mother

  > assumes child's welfare primarily mother's responsibility
• the divorce act - 1969


  -led to woman headed lone parent households

  -more equality between men & women in relationship

  -one person households

  -less nuclear > opposed by functionalists & new right
• civil partnership act 2004


  -same sex couples same rights & responsibilities as civil marriage

  -increase in same sex relationships > feminism happy as all female households

  -less women having children

  -less nuclear
• Marriage & Civil Partnership Minimum Age Act 2022

  -minimum marriage age raised to 18

  -less young girls settling down > persuing career

  -less nuclear families

  -less marriage
• Child Benefit Acts 1975

  -child benefits introduced

  -paid to lone parent families

  -encouraged more young women to get pregnant
• Adoption Act 2005


  -unmarried couples - including gay - right to adopt on same basis as married

  -increased adoption

  -increased cohabitation