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