Mark this essay(Sociology AQA);Social Policy

In this essay I will be examining on how government policies has had an impact on families. The family is seen as a private sphere, however policies may seem to promote preferred family types such as the nuclear family; there has been an indirect and direct policies which may intervene with this such as for indirect; educational or the sex reform act while direct, which affects the family directly such as divorce and the changing tax within married couples.

There has also been global views on policies and its impact on preferences, such as the kibbutz in Israel, in which children are raised up by the community and not there working parents, however the outcome of this policy, led to more people preferring a conventional nuclear side of the family because they believe that children was best adequately socialised within this family type. Another global example is China's one child policy, due to the overcrowding of the population; this outcome has led to disproportionate ratio of males to females. These policies in comparison to Britain tend to intervene less directly in family life.

The New Right view some policies such as benefits for lone parents, as undermining the traditional setting of the family, because of the biology of division of labour which relates to parson of the woman fulfilling the expressive type of role while the man fulfils the instrumental role; this is because it is seen as less reliant on benefits and reduce the self-expenditure. They also argue that benefits help to maintain the underclass, in which this consequently leads to an increase of lone parents and then further thus leads onto delinquent children (especially sons) due to no father figure and daughters becoming lone parents as well due to influence. However feminists criticise this theory, as they believe that women in conventional nuclear families are oppressed. Furthermore the use of policies such as maternity leave suggests that women are meant to be at home and become the main responsibility of children. This is especially true, within the context of Bolton, stating that women are meant to take the main priority of children. However Ellen drew argues that it depends on the country you live in due to certain regimes which can be applied. This can be classified such familistic gender regimes, which tend to be nuclear family oriented within policies and individualistic gender regimes which support family diversity. Furthermore liberal feminists argue that there is a march of progress view, and that women have access to refugees to escape from domestic violence, the sex reform act and employment act.

Nevertheless there are policies that seem to show a favour for conventional nuclear types of family such as educational polices which may effect on dual burden families due to school hours; child support, in which fathers have to pay, which emphasise the importance of absent parents; limited state provision for the elderly, in which there is a practical and emotional burden which is usually upon women and child benefits for women which suggests again that women’s main role and priority is children and links to Bolton.
However some policies do seem to oppose the conventional nuclear family such as benefits for lone parents such as divorce, increased attention of domestic violence, the increased provision of childcare.

The new labour possessed more of a individualistic regime and were more in support of family diversity, because they introduced policies such as the civil partnership (2004) which allowed gays and lesbians to adopt children; however they still did believe that nuclear family was the most preferred type; this can be shown through policies such as employees given the right to have time off work for females and they introduced working families tax.

Overall to conclude is that, policies are still in favour of conventional nuclear families, however due to the extent of family diversity increasing, the ideology of conventional nuclear family is fading due to women working now and other family types increasing.

If possible a mark? Thanks

A01-14(skills of knowledge and understanding) & AO2-10(analysis, application,interpretation and evaluation)

Mark this essay(Sociology AQA);Social Policy

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