Social Policy

• Social policy


  Plans and actions of State agencies e.g. healthcare and social service
• Policies


  1. Usually based on laws introduced by the government

  2. Provide the framework within which these agencies operate
• How most social policy policies affect families

  • Aimed directly at families (e.g. laws governing marriage, divorce, abortion)
  • Other policies that do not directly aim at them but affect them (e.g. compulsory education, taxation policies)
• Comparative view of family policy- Actions and policies of governments

  Can have deep effects on families and their members
• Cross-cultural examples from different societies and historical periods can help see the relationship between families and social policies in a new light
• China's one-child policy


  The government's population control policy aimed at discouraging couples from having more than one child
• China's one-child policy


  1. Supervised by workplace family planning committees

  2. Women must seek permission to become pregnant

  3. Quotas for each factory
• Couples who comply with the one-child policy

  • Get extra benefits
  • Their only child gets priority on housing and other benefits in later life
• Couples who break the one-child policy agreement

  Must repay allowances and undergo sterilisation after their first child
• Former communist government of Romania (1980s)


  Introduced policies to drive up the birth rate, which had been falling as living standards declined
• Policies introduced in communist Romania

  1. Restricted contraception and abortion

  2. Fertility treatment centres were set up

  3. Divorce was made more difficult

  4. Age of marriage was lowered
• Nazi family policy


  • Encouraged the 'master race' and restricted access to abortion and contraception
  • Sterilised 375,000 people deemed unfit to breed
• Democratic societies


  See the family as a private sphere of life, with government only intervening when things go wrong (e.g. child abuse)
• Sociologists argue that in democratic societies, social policies play a very important role in shaping family life
• Social policy functionalism


  Sees social policies as helping the family to perform their functions more effectively and make life better for family members
• Functionalists


  • See social policies as helping the family perform their functions more effectively and make life better for family members
• Fletcher


  The intro of health, education, housing policies since the industrial revolution has been the development of the welfare state that supports the family
• New Right


  Have had considerable influence on government bringing about social policy and its effects on the family, believing social policies should avoid undermining the natural nuclear family
• Murray


  Believes benefits offer perverse incentives that reward irresponsible and anti-social behaviour, as some will abandon their responsibilities towards their families if the state maintains their children
• Social policy can have a big impact on family structures and relationships
• New Right


  Advocate policies to support the traditional nuclear family, believing the less the state interferes in family life the better, as self-reliance and independence from the state is what will enable the family to meet its members' needs most effectively
• Feminism

  • Attempt to justify a return to the traditional patriarchal family
  • Assumes the patriarchal family is natural rather than socially constructed
  • Cutting benefits will drive many poor families into even greater poverty
• Social Policy + New Labour

  • Favours strengthening the institution of marriage and regards a family headed by a married couple as the best place to bring up children
  • Have also cut benefits for some lone parents
  • Take a more positive view of the role of social policies than the New Right and believe that some state intervention can improve some families
  • Have introduced some policies that are at odds with one another, such as changing the law on adoption to give unmarried couples and gay couples the right to adopt on the same basis as married couples
• New Labour's main anti-poverty benefits

  Are means tested (e.g. working tax credit) and are only available to those on a low income, rather than being universal benefits
• Marxist view on social policy and families

  • Don't see social policies as benefiting all members of society equally, but rather see the state and its policies as serving the needs of capitalism
  • Don't accept that there is a gradual march of progress towards better welfare policies making even happier families
  • Argue that improvements for working-class families, such as free healthcare, have usually been won through class struggle
• Donzelot (1977) on the policing of families


  • Policy is a form of state power over families
  • Foucault's concept of surveillance
• Feminist view


  • See society as patriarchal, with men benefiting at the expense of women
  • Argue that all social institutions help maintain women's subordinate position and the unequal gender division of labour in the family
  • Policies are often based on assumptions of what the 'normal' family is like, such as the ideal family being a patriarchal nuclear family with a breadwinner (male) and homemaker (female)
  • Policies supporting the traditional family, such as tax policies, have a normative effect on the kind of families that are supported
• Gender regimes


  How social forces in different countries encourage or discourage gender equality in the family
• Feminists argue that social policy reinforces patriarchal family
• Examining policy from a comparative perspective

  1. Across different party lines

  2. Can see if policies are consistent/different

  3. Policies can encourage more equal family relationships
• A country's policies on taxation, childcare, welfare


  Affect whether women can work full-time
• Breadwinner gender regimes


  • Policies based on the belief in a male breadwinner and female housewife/carer
• Individualist gender regimes


  • Policies based on the belief that husbands and wives should be treated the same, with separate entitlements to state benefits
• Most countries are now moving towards more individualist gender regimes


  A move away from the bad patriarchal family creates more gender equality in family roles/relationships
• Policies like public funded childcare don't come cheap and may involve major conflicts about who should benefit from such policies and who should pay for them
• We can't assume there's an inevitable march of progress towards gender equality
• The global recession beginning in 2008


  Cutbacks in social spending in Europe led to pressure on women to take more responsibility for caring for family members as the state retreats from providing welfare
• There has been a trend towards neo-liberal welfare policies where individuals and families are encouraged to use the market rather than the state to meet their needs
• The differences between European countries show that social policy can play an important role in promoting or preventing gender equality in the family
• Feminism

  Feminists take a conflict view, seeing society as patriarchal and benefiting at women's expense. They argue that all social institutions, including the state and its policies, help maintain women's subordinate position and the traditional gender division of labour in the family.