Social policy & the family A policy is a proposed or adopted course or principle of action Schools have policies; for example whether or not there should be a uniform Social policies are actions governments put in place to solve problems, or to steer the country in a particular direction

Social policy & the family Social policies vary from making gay marriage legal, to introducing the EMA All these policies affect the way society operates, hence the term ‘social’ policy During the 1980s social policies were being designed to address concerns some politicians had about the family Successive governments have sought to construct social policies which strengthened the traditional family The New Right are a group of thinkers who believe the family is the cornerstone of all social policies

Social policy & the family The New Right are a group of thinkers who believe the family is the cornerstone of all social policies They see the nuclear family as the perfect model of how all families should be Politicians like John Redwood were particularly critical of young single-mothers Redwood expressed concern about the cost of welfare payments to single-parent families & how they encourage single-parenthood and the subsequent creation of an underclassunderclass

Social policy & the family Single-parenthood was seen as the greatest threat to the nuclear family The New Right also identified other areas which were threatening the nuclear family Fatherless families Divorce Cohabitation Gay and lesbian couples/marriages

Causes Lone-parenting causes a breakdown of traditional family values by saying other types of families are equally as valid as the traditional nuclear family Fatherless families causes over-generous welfare payments to single mothers which means fathers are let off their responsibilities to their children

Causes Increasing divorce rates has been brought about by the rise in feminism which has devalued marriage, domesticity, childrearing, and has caused women to seek fulfilment outside the home, such as the workplace Cohabitation has caused an increase in permissiveness and an erosion in loyalty The increasing tolerance of gay and lesbian couples has eroded the value of heterosexual marriage

Consequences The consequences for the family from the above is the nuclear family becomes a ‘fragmented families’ Fragmented families can no longer function properly as effective socialisation is impossible Ineffective socialisation causes children to fail at school and are generally anti-social, resulting in more criminal activity

Consequences Many New Right thinkers argue that poor socialisation stems from absent fathers Families without fathers mean many youngsters, particularly boys, lack male role models, particularly when it comes to discipline Therefore families no longer function in an effective way which causes numerous social problems.

Solutions The New Right proposed to key solutions to the problem of the underclass First a return to traditional family values, which means marriage for life and recognition of the duties and responsibilities of adults have when bringing children into the world Secondly a change in government policy so that welfare payments would be designed to support the nuclear family and penalise those families which failed to live up to this ideal

Solutions These policies would be For all taxes and welfare benefits to favour nuclear families For example the income tax threshold (threshold is the amount of money earned before a person pays income tax) would be raised for married couples Another example for would be for working family tax credits & child benefit to be only for married couples

Solutions For the New Right, paying welfare benefits to diverse family forms has the effect of encouraging all types of other families to become acceptable Cohabitation should be discouraged possibly through the taxation system or by restricting legal rights and privileges to cohabiting couples. Divorce should also be made more difficult through the legal system.

Criticism - idealistic Is the New Right spending too much time looking to the past for a golden age which never really existed? Victorian times were seen as the ideal, but even then lone parenting, cohabitation and extra-marital relations were common

Criticism – blame game The New Right tends to blame victims for things that are not of their own making Many of the problems identified come from low wages & a lack of employment opportunities Also there’s cultural changes, these are endemic rather than unique to an underclass For example many celebrities are single parents, cohabit, divorce or have affairs