FAMILY POLICY
Family policies are a subset of government social policies that have as their object the well-being or the behavior of families, particularly families with children.
Conflicts of Principle in Family Policy
To what extent and in what circumstances should a government policy be directed at the family rather than at the individual person on the one hand or at larger social units such as communities on the other? The answer to the question is not straightforward because policies at different levels, particularly at the family and individual levels, often have outcomes that conflict. A policy that has benefits at the family level may have negative effects on individuals within the family. For example, a cash benefit provided to low-income families that is means-tested by family income may be a work disincentive to individuals within low-income families because the cash benefit would be withdrawn as the family income rose. Here a family policy designed to promote family stability by providing an income supplement to low-income families may conflict with a policy to promote self-reliance of individuals through employment. Family policy, policy designed to produce family-level outcomes, is rife with such conflicts.
One response to this conflict would be to assert that there should be no family-level policy, with the contention being that policies directed at individuals will flow through to families without distorting the behavior of individuals in unintended ways. The problem with this approach is that, without family-related incentives, individuals may be better off remaining as individuals and not forming themselves into families. The most obvious example relates to children. If a society provides no recognition of the costs of raising children and the loss of income and career potential related to having children, this may discourage individuals from having children. Yet very low fertility has obvious deleterious outcomes for the society as a whole. Where people already have children, the negative outcome of not providing support to those with children is the possibility that, through poverty or neglect, poor development outcomes for children will flow on to negative social outcomes.
The other central conflict in the design of family policy is the extent to which one family form is favored by policy over other forms. In most advanced industrialized countries, at least in the first half of the twentieth century, family support policy favored the family in which the father was in paid employment and the mother stayed at home to care for the children. This "male breadwinner model" of the family was backed by the social values of the time. Family policies of this era were founded on the assumption that mothers were not in paid employment. No supports were provided to working mothers, even to those who were single parents, because such supports were seen as providing the wrong incentives. The marriage bond was seen as weakened if women were able to support themselves, and children were seen as vulnerable if their mothers were in paid employment. Subsequently, with the advance of the women's movement, policies based on the assumption sumption of the male breadwinner model of the family have come under intense criticism, the result of which is reflected in the evolution of contemporary family policies.
In the conflicts between individual and family approaches and between support of one family form over another, resolution must rely upon a determination of social values. The more that values are in flux and the more pluralistic is the society, the harder it is to resolve these conflicts. Ideally, a social consensus would be built around a chosen policy direction, but where a small number of votes can make a difference, governments are often reluctant to address these fundamental issues. This description encapsulates the state of family policy at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Governments, fiscally unable to satisfy all preferences in a pluralistic society, may satisfy none adequately.
Objectives of Family Policy
Family policy has three broad objectives:
- Family foundation: to support and strengthen family relationships;
- Nurture: to support families to care for their dependent members;
- Reproduction: to support the production of the next generation of productive adults.
Forms of Family Policy
Family policy takes four main forms:
- Legal: laws designed to promote family policy objectives;
- Financial: tax or transfer policies that favor family policy objectives;
- Industrial: policies related to wages or working conditions that favor family policy objectives;
- Services: provision, subsidization, or promotion of services that support family policy objectives.
Types of Family Policy According to Form
Family policies often have overlapping objectives. Thus, it is convenient to talk about particular family policies in terms of their four main forms.
Legal. Marriage laws define who is able to marry (in terms of kin relationship, minimum age, sex of partner, whether already married, and so on) and whether or not people getting married are able to make their own free choice about marrying. Marriage laws also conventionally define the rights and responsibilities of the partners to the marriage and may also define the legal status of children born to the marriage. These laws are designed to meet the family-foundation and nurture objectives and generally reflect social or religious values surrounding the institution of marriage. Divorce laws specify the circumstances under which divorce is permitted, how matrimonial property is to be distributed, and the care and financial support of any children of the marriage. Here again it is family-foundation and nurture aims that are paramount. Over time, divorce laws in most countries have been liberalized, reflecting the enhanced value attached by societies to individual rights in comparison to family rights.
There may also be laws that relate to the care, protection, and financial support of children, satisfying the nurture and reproduction aims. Many countries also have laws that define the responsibilities of adult children for their aged parents. These laws are often not effective in practice because they require parents to instigate a legal action against their children.
Finally, industrial legislation may prohibit discrimination in employment on the grounds of pregnancy status, gender, or family status.
Financial. Governments may favor families through the tax or cash transfer systems. Such policies take three main forms: periodic cash payments, lump-sum payments or low-interest loans, and tax rebates, credits, or deductions.
Periodic cash payments generally take the form of payments made to parents in respect of each child. The payments might vary according to the age of the child. For example, it could be considered that a higher payment should be made when a child is very young to compensate for the expected loss of income of parents at that stage. Alternatively, payments may be higher when children are older and more expensive. The payment may also vary by birth order. If the third child is considered to be particularly important as far as reproduction policy is concerned (on the assumption that many parents would anyway wish to have two children), then a much larger payment could apply to this child (and subsequent children). Essentially, these payments are a form of horizontal equity–that is, a recognition through the tax-transfer system of the additional costs of raising children. Some vertical equity (equalization of incomes across households) might be applied if the payments are income-tested, that is, if they are reduced or eliminated as income rises. As already noted, however, income-tested payments can be inefficient if they create work disincentives for second earners.
Lump-sum payments or loans include payments at the time of birth of a baby (e.g., baby bonus, maternity benefit), at the time a child starts school, or at some other age. An establishment loan (or family founding loan) may be provided at the start of a marriage or relationship with segments of the loan being written off as the couple has each child. There could be endowment schemes contributed to by the government and the family to spread the costs of children across the lifetime. Repayments of loans might be tied to a small percentage of earned income, that is, child costs might be paid off as income rises. Births might be deemed to be equivalent to (large) lump-sum contributions to social insurance or retirement pension schemes. As reproduction policy instruments, however, immediate benefits are more likely to be successful than deferred benefits. That is, assistance with immediate housing costs is probably more likely to affect fertility decision-making than the promise of future assistance with university education or a higher old-age pension.
Tax rebates, credits, or deductions (collectively called tax expenditures) may include tax reductions or credits based on the presence of a child or a spouse. Again, these measures can be targeted to children of different ages or different birth orders. Rebates and credits allow for social equity; deductions are generally socially inequitable with the rich benefiting most. While cash payments may be more closely targeted to the need (that is, more likely to be spent on the child) than benefits delivered through the tax system, tax expenditures are less visible to those concerned with fiscal restraint than are cash expenditures. Tax approaches may thus be more politically sustainable in certain contexts than cash approaches.
Tax may be applied on the separate incomes of the two members of a couple (individual taxation) or on their joint incomes (couple taxation). The use of couple taxation is sometimes described as inefficient because it can affect the level of involvement in the labor force of the second earner–that is, it operates as a work disincentive. As women's work force participation rates have increased, countries have moved in the direction of individual taxation.
Industrial. There are a range of potential policy measures that are designed to assist parents to combine work and family responsibilities. These policies may have the aim of supporting reproduction, but they can also arise as a means of protecting individual and family rights in relation to work. Parental leave (maternity or paternity leave) provides the right of return to a position following leave related to the birth of a child. Leave policy has many nuances such as its duration, whether the leave is paid and at what level, eligibility criteria, how much of the leave is available to mothers or to fathers, and whether there is a right of return to part-time work.
If the leave is paid, should the payment be made by the employer, by social or private insurance, or directly by the government? Payment by employers presents a major burden on small businesses. As having a pregnant worker is a high-cost but low-risk situation, insurance is the obvious approach to paid maternal leave. There is some evidence that leave entitlements of up to three years have a more significant impact on childbearing than one-year leave entitlements.
Flexible working hours, part-time work, and short-term leave for family-related purposes assist families to combine work and family. If the nature of the occupation allows work to be done at home, appropriate provision might be made for this option from time to time but especially when the child is an infant. Overlap of standard work hours and school hours is a work-family benefit.
Services. Education and information services can be directed at enhancing the quality of family relationships, aiding persons in coping with and managing the needs of dependent or disabled family members, family planning and health care, or the management of family finances.
There is a wide range of direct family services that can assist families to deal with children and other dependent family members. Beyond services that are universally required, such as education and health, the most general of these is child care, but the list also includes services that are related to a particular illness or disability, services that assist family members to care for aged persons, respite care services, and sporting and recreational services.
A fundamental policy in this area is the provision of free or subsidized child care of high quality to support the work and family aspirations of parents and to assist in the child's development. It can be argued that child care should be equally available to those who are not employed as this may allow them opportunities for training or for job-seeking as well as providing socially beneficial development opportunities for their children. Besides free provision, the main forms of public support include capital grants to child-care centers and subsidized childcare fees. As an alternative, some countries provide tax breaks for child-care expenses. Child-care expenses might also be exempted from consumption or value-added taxes or, if paid by the employer, treated as a business expense. Arrangements might be made to facilitate the care of children by their grandparents. Child-care eligibility is often tied to the age of the child, especially where there is an emphasis upon parental leave in the child's earliest years. Policy needs to address the balance between parental leave and child-care provision according to community standards. Child care includes the need for "out-of-school-hours" care. This can be provided at a neighborhood center or at the child's school.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Ditch, John, Helen Barnes, and Jonathan Bradshaw, eds. 1998. Developments in National Family Policies in 1996. Brussels: Commission of the European Communities, D.G.V.
Gauthier, Anne. 2002. "Family Policies in Industrialized Countries: Is There Convergence?" Population– English Edition 57(3): 447–474.
Kamerman, Sheila B. 2001. Early Childhood Education and Care: International Perspectives. New York: Columbia University, Institute for Child and Family Policy.
Kamerman, Sheila B., and Alfred J. Kahn, eds. 1997. Family Change and Family Policies in Great Britain, Canada, New Zealand, and the United States. Oxford, Eng.: Clarendon Press, Oxford.
McDonald, Peter. 2002. "Sustaining Fertility through Public Policy; the Range of Options." Population– English Edition 57(3): 417-446.
Millar, Jane, and Andrea Warman. 1996. Family Obligations in Europe. London: Family Policy Studies Centre.
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. 1997. "Family, Market, and Community: Equity and Efficiency in Social Policy." OECD Social Policy Studies 21 Paris.
INTERNET RESOURCE.
The Clearing House on International Developments in Child, Youth and Family Policies at Columbia University. <http://www.childpolicyintl.org>.
