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Few areas of the Families and Households topic connect more directly to the wider sociological imagination than social policy — the plans and actions of governments that shape, support, regulate and sometimes coerce family life. Policy decides who counts as a family for legal and financial purposes, how childcare and care for older people are funded, how the costs of children are shared, and whose model of "the good family" the state will reward. Because the AQA specification explicitly ties the family to state policies, this topic is where the theoretical perspectives studied earlier — functionalism, the New Right, feminism, Marxism — are put to work on concrete examples, and where a distinctively Foucauldian analysis (Donzelot) enters. This lesson examines what counts as family policy, surveys cross-cultural and UK examples, and stages the central debate: does the state support families, control them, or some uneasy combination of both? For AQA A-Level Sociology (7192) the skill is to read any given policy through several competing perspectives and reach a judgement.
Key Definition: Social policy refers to the actions, plans and programmes of governments (and the laws and institutions they create) that aim to address social problems or pursue social goals — here, those affecting families: welfare benefits, taxation, education, healthcare, childcare, parental leave, marriage and divorce law, and child protection. Policy can be explicit (a law about marriage) or implicit (a tax rule that happens to favour one family form).
This lesson addresses the AQA A-Level Sociology (7192) Paper 2, Section A — Families and Households content:
You should be able to describe (AO1) cross-cultural and UK family policies and the major perspectives' readings of them; apply (AO2) these to an Item; and evaluate (AO3) whether state intervention supports or controls families. The content supplies both the 10-mark "applying material from the Item, analyse two…" question and the 20-mark "evaluate…" essay; family policy is also a frequent synoptic anchor.
Comparative examples dramatise the power of the state over family life, and are excellent for demonstrating breadth. They range from pro-natalist (encouraging births) to anti-natalist (restricting them), and from supportive to coercive.
| Feature | Detail |
|---|---|
| Policy | An anti-natalist policy limiting most families to one child, enforced through fines, loss of benefits and, in some cases, coercive sterilisation and abortion |
| Aim | To curb rapid population growth and accelerate economic development |
| Effects | A steep fall in the birth rate; a significant gender imbalance (a cultural preference for sons led to sex-selective practices); the so-called "little emperor" concern about indulged only-children; and a rapidly ageing population with a shrinking future workforce |
| Revision | Relaxed to a two-child policy in 2015 and a three-child policy in 2021, in response to ageing and labour-supply concerns |
| Feature | Detail |
|---|---|
| Policy | Under Nicolae Ceausescu, the regime banned abortion and contraception and offered incentives for large families, pressing women to bear several children |
| Aim | To increase the population and expand the labour force |
| Effects | Births initially rose, but many children were abandoned to severely under-resourced state orphanages; dangerous illegal abortions rose; women's reproductive autonomy was eliminated |
| Significance | A stark illustration of the dangers of coercive pro-natalism and of state control over women's bodies |
| Feature | Detail |
|---|---|
| Policy | A pro-natalist policy for those deemed "racially desirable" (incentives and awards for large "Aryan" families) combined with a eugenic programme of forced sterilisation and, ultimately, mass murder of those deemed "unfit" |
| Aim | To engineer a "racially pure" population — increasing some groups while eliminating others |
| Significance | The most extreme example of the family subordinated to ideological and racial goals, demonstrating how policy can be a tool of social control and oppression |
These cases support the broad sociological point that the family is never simply "private": it is always, to some degree, an object of state power.
The creation of the welfare state after the Second World War profoundly reshaped family life by transferring many functions (welfare, healthcare, education) from family to state:
| Policy Area | Key Measures | Impact on Family |
|---|---|---|
| Health | The NHS (1948) — healthcare free at the point of use | Improved maternal and child health; contributed to falling infant mortality and rising life expectancy |
| Education | The 1944 Education Act — free, compulsory secondary education | Extended childhood; removed children from the labour market; opened (uneven) routes to mobility |
| Housing | Council-house building and New Towns | Provided affordable family housing, but new estates could disperse traditional extended-kin networks |
| Social security | Benefits for the unemployed, sick, older people and families with children | Created a safety net and reduced absolute poverty — though the New Right later argued it bred dependency |
Child Benefit (descended from the post-war Family Allowance) is paid to the parent — usually the mother — of dependent children:
| Policy | Provision (UK) |
|---|---|
| Statutory Maternity Leave/Pay | A substantial period of leave for mothers, partly paid |
| Statutory Paternity Leave/Pay | A much shorter period for fathers, at a relatively low flat rate |
| Shared Parental Leave (from 2015) | Allows eligible parents to share a portion of leave and pay between them |
Sure Start, a New Labour initiative, supported families with young children in disadvantaged areas through children's centres offering childcare and early education, health services, parenting support and employment help. Perspectives diverge sharply:
| Perspective | View of Sure Start |
|---|---|
| Functionalist | Positive — helps families perform their socialisation and childcare functions effectively |
| New Right | Critical — "nanny state" intervention that risks undermining parental responsibility |
| Feminist | Broadly positive — supports women's employment and access to childcare, but underfunded and patchy |
| Marxist | Critical — treats the symptoms of disadvantage (poor outcomes in deprived areas) while leaving the causes (class inequality, capitalism) untouched |
Subsequent austerity saw many centres close or cut back, disproportionately affecting the poorest families — itself a policy decision with clear distributional effects.
Jacques Donzelot (1977) offered a distinctive Foucauldian analysis, drawing on Michel Foucault's concepts of power, surveillance and expert knowledge. He rejected the assumption — shared by functionalists and by some Marxists — that the state simply acts on behalf of society or capital. Instead, he argued, the state polices families through a network of professionals.
Key Concept — The Policing of Families: Donzelot argued that the welfare state extends state power deep into the "private" sphere of the family. Professionals — social workers, health visitors, doctors, teachers — observe, assess and correct family behaviour, especially that of poorer families, against expert norms of "good parenting." "Help" and "surveillance" become inseparable.
Donzelot's key claims:
Foucault's influence is crucial: power here is productive and dispersed (working through everyday professional relationships and the internalisation of norms), not simply repressive or located in a single ruling class — which is what distinguishes Donzelot from the Marxist account.
| Strengths | Limitations |
|---|---|
| Exposes the power dynamics in the state–family relationship that consensus theory ignores | Can seem excessively critical: intervention genuinely protects children from abuse and neglect |
| Shows that "support" and social control are entangled, not opposites | Offers no clear alternative: if the state should not intervene, what protects vulnerable children? |
| Demonstrates that family policy is never ideologically neutral | Tends to homogenise the state and professionals; many families welcome expert help, and professionals are not a single controlling bloc |
| Highlights the class and ethnic targeting of surveillance | Feminists note it neglects gender — it is mothers, specifically, who are most surveilled and held responsible |
graph TD
A["A given family policy<br/>e.g. welfare benefits, parental leave"] --> B["Functionalist: supports the family's functions"]
A --> C["New Right: risks dependency; should promote the nuclear family"]
A --> D["Feminist: tends to entrench gender inequality"]
A --> E["Marxist: reproduces labour power for capital"]
A --> F["Donzelot / Foucauldian: polices and surveils families"]
B --> G["State as benevolent supporter"]
C --> H["State should withdraw + restore traditional family"]
D --> I["State as patriarchal: assumes women care"]
E --> J["State as servant of capitalism"]
F --> K["State as disciplinary power via experts"]
| Perspective | View of State Intervention | Key Argument |
|---|---|---|
| Functionalist (e.g. Ronald Fletcher) | Generally positive | The welfare state, education and healthcare help families perform their functions. Fletcher argued the family has gained an expanded relationship with the state in health, education and welfare, intensifying rather than losing its functions. Policy should sustain the (nuclear) family |
| New Right (e.g. Charles Murray) | Hostile to "excessive" intervention | The welfare state breeds a dependency culture; generous benefits make lone parenthood and worklessness viable, eroding the conventional family and feeding an underclass. The state should cut welfare and promote marriage and traditional roles |
| Feminist | Critical | Policies typically assume women are the carers (meagre paternity leave; care-dependent benefit design); even welcome measures are insufficient. Some feminists note welfare can also create dependence on the state rather than a husband, shifting but not removing patriarchy. Policy should promote genuine gender equality at home and work |
| Marxist (e.g. Eli Zaretsky) | Critical | Family policy reproduces labour power cheaply and maintains a compliant workforce; the welfare state manages capitalism's worst effects without challenging the system. The family absorbs costs (care, socialisation) that benefit capital |
| Donzelot / Foucauldian | Critical | Welfare professionals surveil and regulate families, enforcing expert norms; intervention is a form of disciplinary power, not mere support |
New Labour combined support for diversity with targeted intervention in disadvantaged families — a distinctive mix that drew fire from both right and left:
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