Social policy post 2010 Flashcards
Functionalist and New right on social policy
-NR - feel that state should play minimal role, pieces of legislation have damaged families, e.g. same -sex families
-Saw rise of policies in 1960s/70s from feminists and liberal thinking as a ‘sustained attack on traditional family values’
Policies seen as harmful by new right
- 1967 sexual offences Act - decriminalised male homosexuality
- 2005 Same Sex civil partnerships
- 2014 Coalition government introduces same sex marriages
- 2002 allowed same-sex couples to adopt
- Morgan - suggests that gay couples are unnatural, even suggesting the motivation for gay couples to want to have children as questionable. She suggests they are not the outcome of love but seen as a trophy child who is likely to suffer bullying in the future
- 1967 - Equal Pay Act and the 1977 Sex Discrimination Act- such policies distract women from their natural calling, and had led to acceptance of childlessness. Also led to children being damaged by maternal deprivation
- 1961 - the contraceptive pill encourages infidelity
- 1971 - Divorce Law Reform act
- The benefits system - dependency act , esp single-parent families
-Butler 2010 says strong and durable families needed for the stability of society as ‘broken families’ produces criminal children and benefit dependent children - Murray (NR)
Labour government (1997 - 2010) initiatives:
-Created Minister for children 2003, had become dependent of education by 2010
-Policies moved away from the familial ideal to more individualist outlook, equal rights to families who aren’t married, SPFs as well as nuclear families
-Created a ‘Children’s commissioner’ with the aim of eradicating child poverty. Did not condemn SPFs or alternative family types. It recognised that most families were dual earners
-2003 - Child Tax Credit introduction - typically to mum as this meant money was most likely spent on children
-NR - highly critical, but Judge notes that there was a 900,000 reduction of children in poverty at this time, further 900,000 prevented from falling into poverty
-Bradshaw notes that child neglect and abuse also fell, with happiness in the family in the UK moving up the international tables
Coalition government 2010-1015 (Conservatives and Lib Dems)
-Conservatives felt the 2011 London riots were the results of ‘broken families’ - based on Charles Murray’s idea of the underclass
-This was influences by an earlier report (2006) led by a NR think tank called ‘Breakdown Britain’ that claimed:
- Dissolution - divorce too easy to get
- Dysfunction - parents not taking responsibility for their children
- Dad-lessness - too many dads not taking responsibility for their children
The Troubled Families programme 2011
-Identified 120,000 families who were:
- Involved in crime and anti-social behaviour
- Had children who were persistent truants
- Had adults who had never worked or were long-term unemployed - welfare dependent
- Cost the state a lot of money -dealing with crime related issues but also through poor health
-Such families cost the taxpayer £9 billion
HOWEVER, presents misleading image of historic Britain with ‘happy untroubled families’, but ‘problem’ families have existed for at least 200 years
-3/4 that have been ‘turned’ around are still committing crimes and been excluded from school
-Levitas (2012) - language used by New right is vindictive and harsh, blames poor families, but poorer families are often in that situation through no fault of there own.
Often the victims of government policy and of larger global factors that are not in their control.
The use of this language takes the blame away from larger causes of family poverty
Austerity programme
- Financial crisis in 2008/9 led to this and if hit families hard:
- Bradshaw (2013) claims cuts in public spending hit the poorest the most
- Reed (2012) said it would lead to 120,000 more workless families and 40,000 living in overcrowded housing
- (UNICEF noted that the UK performance on child poverty was poor with it rising by 1.6 compared to Poland where it fell by 8%
The NR though felt that it failed to deal with the families as it failed to strengthen marriage)
Evaluation of social policy
-Nuclear family still the most likely outcome of state policies:
- Favours heterosexual families over same-sex, cohabiting and SPH
-Graham Allen (185) - policies discouraged SPF and cohabiting couples, challenged PM in that policies undermines marriage
-Payment of Child Benefit to the mother, suggests that it is still the mother’s suggested responsibility to deal with childcare.
-Mothers also still primarily take leave surrounding pregnancy, despite maternity and paternity changes, fall behind men in terms of pay and promotion
-Fox Harding (1996) - best council housing is still awarded to married couples with children, but worst housing is given to one-parent families. Housing is still designed for the nuclear family
-NR - believe that intervention in the family has increased - many argue that this has helped to strengthen the nuclear family as the improved rights for women and children
- do not acknowledge that single-parent households and one-parent families are better than dysfunctional nuclear families
-Barrett and McIntosh (1982) - Views the nuclear family as a private institution, potentially leading to neglect of issues such as child abuse. Evidence that children are only taken out of the family as a last resort, contributing to many child-abuse related deaths.
-Family ideology over-idealised the nuclear family
-NR - believe that family and family ideology is in decline. This has been criticised that the family is evolving and not deteriorating as society realises the traditional family does not give women and children the same rights as men
New right and feminist evaluation on social policy
-NR - criticise labour and coalition for undermining traditional nuclear family and traditional sexual division of labour
-Feminists criticise NR - state policy is still dominated in patriarchal ideology (Leonard)
