4.2 The family and social policy

Labour goverment

The new right

The new right is compromised of a group of American and British sociologists, politicians and pressure groups united by there approach to government policy, especially the welfare state

The threat to the nuclear family

New right approach to the family

Focous on the change of the family

Believe there was a golden age of family

Nuclear right emphesise the importance of the nuclear family

the nuclear family is compromised of a breadwinning father, a housewife and many children

The new right are influenced by the functionalist ifeas of murdock and parsons

see traditional nuclear family as under threat and in decline

Suggest the decline in nuclear family the main cause for increase in crime and immoral behaviour

Believe goverment have orchastrated the death of the nuclear family and blame welfare for this

Patricia morgan believes gay families have disrupted the nuclear family

Finch(2003)- argues that labour's election victory in 1997 marked a change in family policy from a familistic regime which promoted the nuclear family towards a more individualistic outlook which wanted to extend the right for both mothers and fathers regardless of marriage or living in nuclear families.

Labour introduced child tax credit in 2003 for all families that pay income tax which finch said recognised children as individuals in their own right.

However labour is very criticised by the new right as it undermined a family privacy and was thought to be encouraging a nanny state that interfered with family life.

Bradshaw(2012) claims that the labour governments family policy was successful as child neglect and abuse fell and subjective child well being improved.

State policy

Feminist critics argue that patriarchal ideoloifes atill shape most state policy on the family, the nuclear family is still the most likely outcome of these policies.

Over the past 30 years, tax and welfare policies ave generally favoured and encouraged the hetrosexual married couple rather than those who are cohabiting, single or same sex.

Policies such as the payment of child benefit and the government's reluctance to fund free universal nursery provision have reinforced the idea that women still take the prime responsibility for childcare.

Mothers are still most often awarded custody of their children after divorce as the court sees them as most suited to child-rearing.

Harding(1996)-Best council housing is still often allocated to married couples with children while worst housing is given to one parent families.

Barrett and Mcintoch(1982)-argue that familial ideology is anti-social because it dismisses alternative family types as irrelevant,inferior and even deviant.

Policy the new right dislike

1967 abortion act

1967 sexual offences act

gay favoring policies

1975 sex dicrimination act

1960 NHS free contreception

the creation of the welfare state