FAMILIES TOPIC 7 - SOCIAL POLICY Flashcards
(6 cards)
Comparative view of family policy
China’s one child policy - from the 70s until 2015, the chinese government implemented a population control policy aimed at discouraging couples from having more than one child. The policy was supervised by workplace family planning - women had to seek permission to try to become pregnant. Couples who complied with the policy got extra benefits such as free healthcare and higher tax allowances.
Communist romania - in the 1980s, they introduced a series of policies to try to drive up the birth rate which had been falling as living standards declined. It restricted contraception and abortion, set up fertility treatment centres and made divorce more difficult.
Nazi family policy - the state pursuied a two-fold policy. On the one hand, it encouraged the healthy and supposedly racially pure to breed a master race. Official policy sought to keep women out of the workforce and confine them to children, kitchen and church. The state compulsorily sterilised 375,000 disabled people that it deemed unfit to breed on grounds on physical malformation, mental retardation, epilepsy, imbecility, deafness and blindness.
functionalism
See society as built on harmony and consensus and free from major conflicts.
They see the state as acting in the interests of society as a whole and its social policies as being for the good of all.
Functionalists see policies as helping families to perform functions more effectively.
Fletcher - introduction of health, education and housing policies in the years since the industrial revolution has gradually led to the development of a welfare state.
The existence of the national health service means that with the help of doctors, nurses, hospitals, and medicines, the family today is better able to take care of its members when they are sick.
However the functionalist view has been criticised on two main counts:
It assumes that all members of the family benefit equally from social policies while feminists argue that only men benefit at the expense of women.
It assumes that there is a march of progress with social policies steadily making life better while marxists argue that policies can turn the clock back and reverse progress previously made.
Policing the family
Donzelot - conflict view of society and he sees policy as a form of state power and control over families. He is interested in the how professionals carry out surveillance of families. Social workers, health visitors and doctors use their knowledge to control and change families.
Poor families are more likely to be seen as problem families and as the cause of crime and anti social behaviour.
Donzelot rejects functionalist march of progress view that social policy and the professionals who carry it out have creates a better, freer or more human society. Instead he sees social policy as a form of state control.
New right
Almond argues that
Laws making divorce easier undermine the idea of marriage as a lifelong commitment between a man and a woman
The introduction of civil partnerships for gay and lesbian couples sends out the message that the state no longer sees heterosexual relationships as superior.
Murray - critical of welfare benefits as he argues that it provides generous welfare benefits and perverse incentives. He argues that cutting welfare benefits means that taxes can be reduced.
Evaluation:
Feminists argue that it is an attempt to justify a return to the traditional patriarchal nuclear family.
Wrongly assumes that The nuclear family is natural rather than socially constructed.
feminism
Take a conflict view - see society as patriarchal, benefiting men at women’s expense.
Policies are often based on assumptions about what the normal family is like. Land argues that many social policies assume that many social policies assume that the ideal family is the patriarchy nuclear family with a male provider and female homemaker plus their dependent children. This norm of what the family should be like affects the kind of policies governing family life.
Tax and benefits policies may assume that husbands are the main wage earners and that wives are their financial dependents making it impossible for women to claim social security benefits in their own right since it is expected that men will provide.
Evaluation
Not all policies are directed at maintaining patriarchy such as equal pay and sex discrimination laws
Gender regimes
Feminists argue that social policy reinforces the patriarchal family
A country’s policies on taxation, childcare, welfare services and equal opportunities will all affect whether women can work full time or whether they have to forgo paid work.
Drew - uses the concept of gender regimes to describe how social policies in different countries can either encourage or discourage gender equality in the family and at work.
Familistic gender regimes - policies based on traditional gender division between male breadwinner amd female housewife and carer.
Individualistic gender regimes - policies are based on the belief that husbands and wives should be treated the same. Wives are not assumed to be financially dependent on their husbands so each partner has a separate entitlement to state benefits
