SCLY1 - Families and Households - Topic 7 Families and social policy. (AS AQA Sociology)

The government of the newly formed ____________ sought to destroy the old pre-revolutionary patriarchal family structure which it regarded as an obstacle to the creation of a socialist society based on equality.

The soviet union in the ________ changed the laws to make divorce and abortion easy to obtain, the constitution guaranteed equality between the sexes, women entered paid employment on a vast scale, and the state began to provide workplaces and other communal nurseries.

The new soviet state was beset by many difficulties, including the civil war, famine and, after Hitler's rise to power in 1933, the threat of war with Nazi Germany. The nee to industrialise rapidly and to prepare for war meant a change in policy. Which of these was not a policy introduced in this time?

In contrast with the former Soviet Unions attempts to encourage population growth through its family policies, in China the governments population control policy has discouraged couples from having more than one child.According to ___________, the policy is supervised by workplace family planning committees; women must seek their permission to try to become pregnant, and there is often both a waiting list and a quota for each factory.

In contrast to China's one child policy, the former communist government of Romania in the _______ introduced a series of policies to try and drive up the birth rate, which had been falling as living standards declined.

In __________ in the 1930's, the state pursued a twofold policy. On the one hand, it encouraged the healthy and supposedly 'racially pure' to breed a master race (e.g by restricting abortion and contraception). Official policies sought to keep women out of the workforce and confine them to the 'children, kitchen and church', the better to perform their biological role.

_______ see policies as helping families to perform their functions more effectively and make life better for their members.

_____________ argues that the introduction of health, education and housing policies in the years since the industrial revolution has gradually led to the development of the welfare state that supports the family in performing its functions more effectively. For example, the existence of the NHS 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.

The functionalist view has been criticised on two main counts; It assumes that all members of the family benefit form social policies, where as feminists argue that policies that often benefit men at the expense of women and ___________

______________ believe policies should therefore avoid doing anything that might undermine this natural self-reliant family.

_____________ criticise many existing government policies for undermining the family. In particular, they argue that governments often weaken the family's self-reliance by providing generous welfare benefits, These include providing council housing for unmarried teenage mothers and cash payments to support lone-parent families.

______________ argues that generous welfare benefits offer 'perverse incentives' - that is, they reward anti-social behaviour. For example: If fathers see that the state will maintain their children, some of them will abandon their responsibilities to their families. Also providing council housing for unmarried teenage mothers encourages young girls to become pregnant.

The New Right's solution to problems caused by a policies supporting a dependency culture, is that the policies must be changed and there should be cuts in welfare spending and tighter restrictions on who is eligible for benefits.

The New right advocate policies to support the ___________________ family, such as taxes that favour married rather than cohabiting couples, and the Child support Agency, whose main role is to make absent fathers financially responsible for their children.

Whereas _____________ take the view that state welfare policies can benefit the family and make it better able to meet its members needs, the New Right disagree. In their view, the less the state 'interferes' in families, the better family life will be. Greater self-reliance, and not reliance on the state, is what will enable the family to meet its members needs most effectively.

The New Right has been criticised on several counts: Feminists argue that it is an attempt to justify a return to the traditional patriarchal family that subordinated women to men and confined them to a domestic role. Also it wrongly assumes that the ....................

New Labour - Although the New Rights policies are usually associated with the ______________ party, many commentators have noted similarities between these ideas and New Labour views on the family and social policy. Both before and after being elected to government in 1997, New Labour politicians have made statements supporting the traditional family.

New Labour take a more ___________ view of the role of social policy than the New Right and believes that certain kinds of state intervention can improve life for families.

New Labour have introduced a number of policies that support the New Right view. For example they have changed the law on adoption to give unmarried cohabiting couples, including gay couples, the right to adopt on the same grounds as married couples.

In keeping with New Right thinking, many of New Labour's main anti-poverty benefits, such as Working Families tax credit, are means tested rather than being universal benefits available to everyone, like child benefit , for example.

___________________ Argue that in all institutions, including the state and its policies, help to maintain women subordinate position and the unequal gender division of labour in the family.

____________ argue that social policies often assume that the ideal family is the patriarchal nuclear family with a male provider and female home-maker, along with dependent children.

___________________ argues that even where policies appear to support women, they may still reinforce the patriarchal family and act as a form of social control over women. For example, although maternity leave policies benefit women, they also reinforce patriarchy in the family. Maternity leave is much more generous than that for paternity leave and this encourages the assumption that the car of the infant is the mothers rather than fathers. (AN: For extra marks, argue that this is now no longer the case because as of the new Shared Parental leave policy of April 2015)

The feminist view of social policy has been criticised. Not all policies are directed at maintaining patriarchy. For example, equal pay and sex discrimination laws, benefits for lone parents, refuges for women escaping domestic violence and equal rights to divorce could all be said to challenge the patriarchal family

__________ 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. She identifies two types of gender regime following families policies: Traditional familiaristic gender regimes and more equal individualistic gender regimes.

_____________ do not see social policies as benefiting all members of society equally. They see the state and its policies as serving capitalism. For example, they see the low level of state pensions as evidence that once workers are too old to produce profits, they are maintained at the lowest possible cost.

__________ sees policy as a form of state control over families. He uses Foucault's (1976) concept of surveillance. Foucault sees power not just as something held by the government or state, but as diffused throughout society and found within all relationships. In particular, Foucault sees professionals such as doctors and social workers as exercising power over their clients by using their expert knowledge.

Donzelot (1977) rejects the march of progress view that social policy and professionals who carry it out have created a better freer society. Instead he argues he agrees with other conflict theorists that social policy is a form of state control on the family.