1.7 Social Policy

Question 1

Summary

Answer 1

1. Comparative View of Family Policy
2. Perspectives on Families and Social Policy
3. New Right
4. New Right’s Influence on Policies
5. Feminism

Question 2

1. Comparative View of Family Policy

Answer 2

1. China’s One Child Policy
2. Communist Romania
3. Nazi Germany
4. Democratic Societies

Question 3

2. Perspectives on Families and Social Policy

Answer 3

1. Functionalism
2. Criticisms of Functionalism
3. Donzelot
4. Criticisms of Donzelot

Question 4

3. New Right

Answer 4

1. Threats to the Conventional Family
2. Welfare Policy
3. New Right Solution
4. Evaluation of New Right View

Question 5

4. New Right’s Influence on Policies

Answer 5

1. Conservative Governments (79-97)
2. New Labour Governments
3. Coalition Government

Question 6

5. Feminism

Answer 6

1. Policy as Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
2. Policies Support the Patriarchal Family
3. Care for the Sick and Elderly
4. Gender Regimes
5. State vs Market

Question 7

1.1 China’s One Child Policy

Answer 7

• Aimed to discourage couples from having more than one child
• Policy supervised by workplace family planning committees
• Women would seek their permission to try to become pregnant
• Women face pressure to undergo sterilisation after first child

Couples who do complu: Get benefits
- Free child healthcare, higher tax allowances
- Only Child gets priority in education and housing
Couples who don’t comply: pay a fine

Question 8

1.2 Communist Romania

Answer 8

• Birth rate was falling as living standards declined
• Introduced many policies to drive up the birth rate.
• Restricted contraception and abortion
• Made divorce more difficult
• Lovered legal age of marriage to 15
• Made unmarried adults and childless couples pay an extra 5% income tax

Question 9

1.3 Nazi Germany

Answer 9

State pursued a twofold policy

1. Encouraged the healthy and ‘racially pure’ to breed a ‘master race’
   - Restricting access to abortion and contraception
   - Official policy sought to confine women to ‘children, kitchen and church’, to perform their biological role
2. State compulsorily sterilised 375,000 disabled people that it deemed unfit to breed.
   - Many were killed in Nazi concentration camps

Question 10

1.4 Democratic Societies

Answer 10

• Some argue that in democratic societies, the family is a private sphere in which the government rarely intervenes
• Sociologists argue that in democratic societies, state plays a very important role in shaping family life

Question 11

2.1 Functionalism

Answer 11

• See society as built on consensus and free from major conflicts
• State acts in the interests of society as a whole and its social policies are for the good of all
• Policies help families to perform their functions
• Fletcher: introduction of health, education and housing policies have gradually led to development of a welfare state that supports the family in performing it’s functions
• NHS means that family are better able to take care of members

Question 12

2.2 Criticism of Functionalism

Answer 12

• Assumes all members benefit equally…
• Feminists: policies often benefit men at the expense of women
• Assumes that there is a ‘March of Progress’
• Marxists: that policies can reverse progress previously made
• E.g. cutting welfare benefits

Question 13

2.3 Donzelot

Answer 13

• Has a conflict view of society.
• Sees policy as state control over families
• Foucault: doctors and social workers exercise their power over clients by turning them into ‘cases’ to be dealt with.
• Donzelot: professionals control and change families.
• This is what he calls ‘the Policing of Families
• Poor families are moor likely to be seen as ‘problem’ families.
• Condry: state may seek to control family life by imposing compulsory Parenting Orders through the courts

Question 14

2.4 Criticisms of Donzelot

Answer 14

• Donzelot fails to identify who benefits from such policies
• Marxists: benefits bourgeoisie
• Feminists: benefit men

Question 15

3.1 Threats to the Conventional Family

Answer 15

• Strongly in favour of the conventional nuclear family
• Greater family diversity (divorce, cohabitation and gays) are a threat to conventional family
• This is producing social problems such as crime and welfare dependency
• Almond: Laws making divorce easier - undermine idea of marriage as a lifelong commitment.
• Civil partnerships: conveys message that state no longer sees heterosexual marriage as superior
• Tax laws discriminate against families with a sole breadwinner.
• Marriage and cohabitation have been made similar through increased rights from cohabiting couples (E.g. adoption rights)

Question 16

3.2 Welfare Policy

Answer 16

• Murray: critical of welfare policy
• Providing ‘generous’ welfare benefits (e.g. council housing for unmarried teenage mothers / cash payments to support lone-parent families) undermines the conventional nuclear family and encourages deviant and dysfunctional family types.
• Murray: argues these benefits offer ‘perverse incentives’
• Fathers see the state will maintain their children, some will abandon their responsibilities towards their families
• Providing council housing for unmarried teenage mothers encourages young girls to become pregnant
• This has encouraged growth of lone parent families
• More boys will grow up without a male role model (increasing crime rate)
• NR believe ‘dependency culture’ threatens two functions:
  1. Successful Socialisation
  2. Maintenance of work ethic among men

Question 17

3.3 New Right Solution

Answer 17

1. New Right believe in cuts to welfare spending and tighter restrictions on who is eligible for benefits
   - Cutting (G) could lead to cutting (T) giving fathers incentive to work
   - Denying council housing to teenage mothers would remove incentive to become pregnant
2. New Right advocate policies to support traditional nuclear family
   - Taxes that favour married rather than cohabiting couples
   - Making absent fathers financially responsible for their children

Question 18

3.4 Evaluation of New Right View

Answer 18

• Feminists: traditional patriarchal nuclear family subordinates women to men.
• Wrongly assumes that patriarchal nuclear family is ‘natural’ rather than socially constructed.
• Abbott and Wallace: cutting benefits results in greater poverty and therefore less self-reliance
• There are many policies that support nuclear family

Question 19

4.1 Conservative Governments (79-97)

Answer 19

Pro NR:

• Section 28: banned promotion of homosexuality by local authorities
• Conservatives defined divorce as a social problem
• Child Support Agency: enforce maintenance payments by absent parents

Conservatives Anti-NR Policies

• Making divorce easier
• Gave ‘illegitimate’ children the same rights as those born to married parents

Question 20

4.2 New Labour Governments

Answer 20

Pro NR:

• Believed family is the bedrock of society
• Saw a family headed by a married, heterosexual couple as the best environment for bringing up children

Anti NR:

• Silva and Smart: New Labour encouraged women to work
• NL policies favoured the neo-conventional family
• Longer maternity leave made it easier for both parents to work
• Working Families Tax Credit: enabled parents to claim some tax relief on childcare costs
• New Deal helped lone parents return to work

NR oppose…

• state intervention
• redistributing income (welfare, taxation and minimum wage)
• alternatives to nuclear family (civil partnerships and cohabitants right to adopt)

Question 21

4.3 Coalition Government

Answer 21

• Hayton: long divide in the Conservatives between MODERNISERS (accept family diversity) and TRADITIONALISTS (new right)
• Division has led to difficulty in maintaining consistent policy
• Same-sex marriage reflected modernisers
• Browne: 2 parent families with children fared badly as a result of the Coalition’s tax and benefits policies
• Financial austerity reflected New Right

Question 22

5.1 Policy as Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

Answer 22

• Land: many social policies assume that the ideal family is the patriarchal nuclear family with male provider
• Effects of the policies is often to reinforce that particular type of family at the expense of other types.
• E.g. state assumes ‘normal’ families are based on marriage and offers tax incentives to married couples
• This discourages cohabitation

Question 23

5.2 Policies Support the Patriarchal Family

Answer 23

Tax and Benefits Policies

• May assume that husbands are the main wage-earners
• This can make it impossible for wives to claim social security benefits
• This reinforced dependence on husbands

Childcare:

• State doesn’t pay for enough pre-school to permit parents work full time
• Policies governing school timetables and holidays make it hard for parents to work full time
• Women are restricted from working and placed in a position of economic dependence

Question 24

5.3 Care for the Sick and Elderly

Answer 24

• Policy assumes family will provide this care
• This means middle aged women are expected to do the caring
• This prevents them from working (economic dependency)
• Leondard: even when policies appear to support women, they reinforce social control over women
• E.g. maternity leave is higher than paternity leaves (encourages assumption that care of infants is responsibility of mothers)

Question 25

5.4 Gender Regimes

Answer 25

- Drew: uses concept of 'gender regimes' to describe how social policies in different countries can either encourage or discourage gender equality - Identifies two gender regimes. 1. Familistic Gender Regimes: policies based on a traditional gender division - Greece: little state welfare or publicly funded childcare - Women have to rely heavily on support from their extended kin 2. Individualistic Gender Regimes: policies based on equality between sexes - Sweden: policies treat husband and wives as equally responsible for earning and domestic tasks - Policies include equal opportunities, state provision of childcare and quality welfare services (women less dependent on husbands)

Question 26

5.5 State vs Market

Answer 26

- Drew: Most EU countries are approaching more individualistic gender regimes - This is likely to bring about greater equality in family roles and relationship - Feminists argue that since 2008, cutbacks in (G) led to pressure on women to take more responsibility.