The nature and extent of changes within the family, and the impact of social policy and laws on family structure, gender roles and the balance of power within families.

What this dot point is asking

AQA wants you to explain how social policy and laws shape family life, and to compare perspectives (functionalist, New Right, feminist, Marxist) on whose interests family policy serves. The key idea is that the same policy looks different through each perspective.

What social policy is

Policy can be explicitly about families (divorce law, child benefit) or affect them indirectly (housing, employment law). It can both respond to family change and actively shape it, for example by making certain family forms easier or harder to sustain. A comparative case often used in the exam is China's former one-child policy, which shows how far the state can intervene in family life.

Functionalist and New Right views

• Functionalists see the state and family as working together for the good of society; policies such as health, education and welfare services help the family carry out its functions. Fletcher argues the welfare state (the NHS, schools, benefits) supports the family rather than undermining it, and has even created new functions.
• The New Right favours policies that support the traditional nuclear family and self-reliance. Murray argues that over-generous welfare creates perverse incentives and a "dependency culture", rewarding behaviour such as lone parenthood and producing a workshy "underclass". The New Right therefore opposes policies that, in its view, undermine traditional roles and marriage, and favours cutting benefits and promoting marriage.

Feminist and Marxist views

• Feminists argue policy often assumes a patriarchal nuclear family and reinforces women's caring role. Land argues many policies (tax, benefits, the original design of pensions and maternity rather than paternity leave) assume the conventional family with a male breadwinner and dependent wife, shaping a "gender regime". Some policies (shared parental leave, state childcare) can challenge this, so feminists do not see all policy as uniformly patriarchal.
• Marxists argue family policy ultimately serves capitalism by reproducing and maintaining labour power cheaply (caring done unpaid in the family) and by keeping the family as a unit of consumption and social control.

Examples of policy effects

• Divorce law (the 1969 Reform Act) made divorce easier and contributed to family diversity.
• Benefits and tax can encourage or discourage marriage, cohabitation and lone parenthood (the debate over "couple penalties" and incentives).
• Parental leave and childcare policy can reinforce or challenge the gendered division of labour; comparison with Sweden (generous, father-reserved leave) shows how policy can actively promote shared parenting (Drew's gender regimes, contrasting "familistic" and "individualistic" regimes).

Evaluation

Policies have unintended as well as intended consequences, and the same policy is read differently by each perspective: the New Right sees welfare as harmful, feminists see it as reinforcing (or sometimes challenging) patriarchy, and functionalists see it as supportive. Comparative evidence (Sweden, China) shows policy can actively shape family forms and gender roles, not merely respond to them, so the family and the state are closely entangled.