new right

• New Right (NR)


  Most influential during the 1980s and 1990s when Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister of the UK, usually conservative thinkers and politicians who believe very strongly in tradition, individual liberty and choice
• NR argue the nuclear family and the moral character of the young are under attack from a number of 'threats', including sex education, contraception, working mothers, homosexuality, divorce and single-parent families
• NR preferred family


  Traditional nuclear family with a clear sexual division of labour between husband and wife
• NR see the traditional nuclear family as 'natural' and based on fundamental biological differences between men and women, like Functionalists
• NR believe the 1950s was a 'golden age' of the family
• NR ideology of the family

  Family is the cornerstone of society; a place of contentment, refuge and harmony, transmitted by sections of the media, politicians & religious leaders, i.e. the 'cereal packet image'
• Why NR favour the traditional nuclear family

  Provides stability, is independent and self-reliant, reduces state expenditure and allows taxes to be kept low which benefits private enterprise
• NR theorists believe that social policies on the family, children, divorce and welfare have undermined the family and has led to a decline in the nuclear family
• NR suggest liberal state social policies are responsible for starting the perceived decline in traditional family values
• NR accuse the government as either not doing enough to protect the traditional family or paradoxically interfering too much
• NR believe increasing diversity has created unsuitable family forms which cannot fulfil the functions of the family which are necessary for the stability of society
• NR believe increasing diversity reflects declining moral values and has created a range of social problems such as unemployment, educational underachievement, rising crime rates and anti-social behaviour
• There is evidence to show the traditional nuclear family is in decline since the 1970's
• NR critique policies regarding the impact of Feminism, arguing it led to the introduction of equal opportunities and equal pay social policies and laws which have distracted women from their 'natural' careers as mothers
• NR claim there have been few tax or benefit policies aimed at encouraging mothers to stay at home with their children
• NR argue these social policies have also supposedly created confusion for the modern man and woman in regard to their family roles, leading to general unhappiness and problems such as divorce and a sharp increase in the number of single-parent families
• NR believe working mothers are responsible for social problems such as juvenile delinquency and anti- social behaviour because children no longer experience long-term nurturing and socialisation from their mothers because they are out at work
• NR claim that generations of children have been psychologically 'damaged' by maternal deprivation
• NR see sexual permissiveness and promiscuity as on the increase and the cause of a moral decay in society
• NR argue government social policy has encouraged this decline in morality and undermined the nuclear family in a range of ways, including decriminalising homosexuality, making contraception freely available, decriminalising abortion, and reforming divorce laws
• NR argue the Divorce Reform Act has resulted in people no longer taking marriage seriously and that commitment to marriage has been weakened by successive governments
• NR express concerns about the UK's record on teenage pregnancy and the increase in the number of children born outside of marriage, viewing these as signs of moral breakdown
• Criticisms of the New Right perspective

  • Feminists criticise the patriarchal elements and the continuance of the subordinated female role
  • Gender roles are socially determined rather than being fixed by biology
  • Traditional gender roles are oppressive to women
• NR see the increase in the number of couples living together (cohabitation) as threatening the institution of marriage
• Marxist criticisms of the New Right

  • New Right thought is a variant of ruling class ideology devoted to the maintenance of capitalism
  • Nuclear families encourage primary socialisation and shared moral values and pass these societal values onto their children
  • Parents pass on a work ethic to their children and this benefits free-market capitalist economies
• Charles Murray (NR sociologist)


  Argues that an underclass has been created through over generous welfare payments, especially to single- parents, which reward irresponsibility and anti-social behaviour
• Murray believed young women had babies in order to get benefits, which in turn meant men didn't take responsibility for fatherhood
• Criticisms of Murray's views


  • Only a small minority of single mothers become pregnant intentionally
  • Young unmarried women recognise that lone single parenthood is likely to lead to poverty and unlikely to lead to preferential allocation of housing by local authorities
  • The vast majority of lone single parents would prefer too be employed
  • It is not clear that the absence of a father present in the household necessarily discourages boys from acceptance of the necessity of future employment in preparation for parenthood
  • Idealistic perspective, spends too much time looking to the past for a golden age which never really existed
  • In Victorian times lone parenting, cohabitation and extra-marital relations were common
  • Murray is blaming the victims for their problems not the state for creating them
  • Possible dysfunctions of the nuclear family suggest that alternative family forms may be more preferable alternatives to the nuclear family
• Murray said children born to single mothers didn't have male role models so in turn grew up to be lazy, benefit dependent and criminal
• Dennis and Erdos (NR) argue that the effects of absent fathers are substantial for boys as they grow up without a male role model and lack primary socialisation, leading to antisocial behaviour
• NR sociologists such as Marsland and Saunders suggest one-parent families constitute a major part of a criminal underclass which encourages their children to be anti-authority, anti- education, idle and anti-social
• Murray links hooliganism, drug abuse and educational failure with single parent families
• Murray suggests the lack of a male role model means that the children of single parents lack a disciplinarian able to control male children in particular, leading to them running wild at schools and on the streets, and being responsible for the recent rise in gun and knife-related gang crimes
• Charles Murray: '"When it comes to effective socialisation, no alternative family structure comes close to the merits of two parents, formally married"'
• The changes described by Murray and Morgan aren't necessarily evidence of a decline in 'the family' but rather a change in family forms through increasing family diversity
• Advocates of family diversity such as Robert and Rhona Rapoport (1989) see increasing diversity as good because it gives people greater freedom to live in the household/family type of their choosing
• Feminists would critique the NR view that women are inadequate agents of socialisation, and that they exaggerate the decline of the Nuclear family
• Most adults still marry and have children, most children are reared by their two natural parents, and most marriages continue until death, despite an increase in divorce
• Chester argues that the NR exaggerate the extent of cohabiting and single parent families - most children still spend most of their lives in a nuclear family arrangement
• NR solution


  The remoralisation of society: the reassertion of traditional moral values which will increase support for the traditional nuclear family based upon life-long marriage, a change in government policy e.g. redirecting welfare benefits and social service provision to support and maintain two parent families