Impacts on family structures

• Types of policies

  • Direct = policies that promote / reject certain household structures e.g tax allowance for married couples
  • Indirect = policies may not have intended to impact structures but once implemented had an impact, e.g equal pay act
• Increased cohabitation and delayed marriage

  • Career aspirations for women > marriage delayed as women focus on themselves
  • Availability of contraception and legalization of abortion
  • Greater geographical movement > people work or travel before settling down
• Increased divorce

  • Divorce reform led to breakdown of family unit > more lone-parent families and reconstituted families
  • Creation of welfare state > resident partners could get greater financial support from state for looking after children > single parent benefits
• Same sex families

  • Decriminalisation of homosexuality > increase in same sex families > civil partnership act
  • Changes to legislation to adoption and IVF treatments
• Lone-parent families

  • Welfare state provides protections for lone parent families > accusations of welfare dependency
  • Availability of lone-parent adoption > women can choose to parent alone