"What aspects of family change since the 1960's have had the most important implications for Social Policy?"

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                            “What aspects of family change since the 1960’s have                   had the most important implications for Social Policy?”

                               Perhaps the most important feature of the family within British Society, as Allen noted in a recent publication, is that there is “nothing set about the family as such” (Allen G and Crow G, 2001, p20). Indeed, ever since the dawn of industrialisation several hundred years ago, the demands made on family forms due to the continuing effects of demographic change have ensured that family forms are continually evolving and advancing. This has been especially true within the past 50-or-so years, as the period has witnessed some vast social reconstruction’s in terms of marriage patterns, divorce rates, numbers of elderly people etc.., which have had a profound effect on the family. This essay will look at these developments, and examine them in relation to recent Labour and Conservative governments social policies on the family.

 

                                    One of the changes that has influenced family life and has grown dramatically since the 1960’s is that of divorce. In 1964 there were 34,868 divorces per year in England; however by 1972 this had dramatically increased to 119, 025 (. This was due largely to the 1969 Divorce Act, which introduced new grounds for divorce as well as “helping to redefine peoples perceptions of what was acceptable within marriage” (Allen G and Crow G, 2001, p24). Although the 1980’s and 90’s didn’t witness as steep an increase in divorce rates as the 1970’s did it is still estimated that four out of every ten marriages in Britain today will end in Divorce (Dallos and McLaughlin, 1993, p143). This has presented something of a challenge for successive governments social policies, as the post-war British social security system was founded on the assumption that there would be full employment, male breadwinners and stable families. The increase in single parent households that has arisen out of the higher divorce rate has led to governments introducing policies that are aimed at ensuring that the living standards of children do not decrease significantly because of the fact that they are living in a lower-income household. The Children’s Act of 1989 altered the situation facing parents and children on divorce by abolishing the old notions of custody and access so that parents would no longer feel the need to fight over their children. The         Act also encouraged parents to share  childcare and required judges and others to listen more to the views of children after divorce. Likewise, the Child Support Act of 1991 aimed to ensure that children were entitled to financial support from both parents following family breakdown. This was done by taking away the responsibility of directing benefit payments from the courts, (who were criticised for being too slow and beaurocratic), and putting them in the hands of a support agency who “chased up” absent fathers.

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                                Another change in the structure of the contemporary family is the great increase in the numbers of lone mothers. It is estimated that the numbers present in the U.K. have risen from around half a million in the early 1970’s to around 1.7 million in 1998- almost a quarter of families (Harding L, 2001). Lone mothers make up approximately 90% of lone parent households, and the fastest growing section among lone-parent families is that of single-never married mothers (Giddens A, 2001, p181). This ...

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