A new book provided a comparative analysis of family well-being from a European perspective.
Source: Almudena Moreno Minguez (ed.), Family Well-Being: European perspectives, Springer
Links: Summary
Date: 2012-Dec
A new book examined, through a multi-disciplinary lens, the possibilities offered by relationships and family forms that challenged the nuclear family ideal; and some of the arguments that recommended or disqualified these as legitimate social units. It considered a range of relationship and family structures that departed from this ideal: polyamory and polygamy; single- and poly-parenting; parenting by gay and lesbian couples; and families created through existing and prospective modes of assisted human reproduction such as surrogate motherhood, donor insemination and reproductive cloning.
Source: Daniela Cutas and Sarah Chan, Families: Beyond the Nuclear Ideal, Bloomsbury Publishing
Links: Summary
Date: 2012-Oct
An article examined the first three years' operation of new financial remedies between cohabitants following separation in Scots law. It illustrated the phenomenon of 'unintended consequences' arising from law reform, and family law reform in particular.
Source: Jo Miles, Fran Wasoff, and Enid Mordaunt, 'Reforming family law – the case of cohabitation: "things may not work out as you expect"', Journal of Social Welfare & Family Law, Volume 34 Number 2
Links: Abstract
Date: 2012-Oct
A think-tank report criticized the failure of the coalition government to do more to tackle family breakdown. It said that families headed by married couples would be in a minority by 2050 on existing trends, and that marriage was increasingly the preserve of the middle and upper classes. The government's lack of a clear and coherent strategy to strengthen families contrasted starkly with its early and sustained action to reform welfare and education, and threatened to undermine gains in these other vital policy areas.
Source: Forgotten Families? The vanishing agenda, Centre for Social Justice
Links: Report | Daily Mail report | Telegraph report
Date: 2012-Oct
A new book offered a radical rethink of family policy. It analyzed the major shift in the role of the state in recent years – with its aspirations to reduce child poverty, increase social mobility, and deliver social cohesion – and considered whether this philosophy of social betterment through manipulating the parent-child relationship was appropriate for family policy. It argued instead for a family policy free of other government agendas.
Source: Clem Henricson, A Revolution in Family Policy: Where we should go from here, Policy Press
Links: Summary
Date: 2012-Sep
A new book examined the status of children in the European Union. It analyzed the legal and policy framework underpinning children's rights across a range of areas, including family law, education, immigration, and child protection.
Source: Helen Stalford, Children and the European Union: Rights, welfare and accountability, Hart Publishing
Links: Summary
Date: 2012-Aug
An article examined the practices of family law by Muslims in contemporary Britain. It challenged the exclusive focus on positivist state law as the sole legal framework within which western conceptions of citizenship were being imagined. It analyzed practices of British-Muslim family law as an incipient 'legal field' that was developing a corresponding market of Islamic legal services.
Source: Lisa Pilgram, 'British-Muslim family law and citizenship', Citizenship Studies, Volume 16 Number 5-6
Links: Abstract
Date: 2012-Aug
An article developed a typology of different family policy systems in Europe and evaluated their impact on the employment strategy of mothers with care responsibilities for dependent children. It identified four different family policy models: extensive family policy, long parental leave, family care, and cash for care. For each model, different strategies were found for the take-up of employment by mothers with dependent children.
Source: Thomas Boje and Anders Ejrn s, 'Policy and practice: the relationship between family policy regime and women's labour market participation in Europe', International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, Volume 32 Issue 9/10
Links: Abstract
Date: 2012-Aug
An article said that defending families should be part of any answer to social injustice, rather than being treated as part of the problem. Family relationships should be seen as a primary good: people needed close, caring, committed relationships, no matter what else they wanted in life. Families were also increasingly important to people's chances in life. The gulf was widening between those rich and those poor in family life. This should worry egalitarians because lacking good, stable family relationships was a major disadvantage, and one that held back progress towards other aspects of social justice.
Source: Sophie Moullin, 'Why progressives should be pro-family', Political Quarterly, Volume 83 Issue 3
Links: Abstract
Date: 2012-Aug
A new book examined themes in family law debates. The first section looked at challenges facing the family justice system, the inter-relationship between rights and responsibilities, and the increasing internationalization of the law regulating families. The second section focused on adult relationships: it suggested new ways for the law to allocate legal consequences for families, asked whether the 'contractualization' marriage would open up the possibility of all the marriage 'terms' being negotiable by the parties, and explored the value of 'fairness' in family finances. The third section considered children in family law.
Source: Rob George, Ideas and Debates in Family Law, Hart Publishing
Links: Summary
Date: 2012-Aug
A paper examined how far fertility trends responded to family policies in developed (OECD) countries over the period 1982-2007. Each instrument of the family policy package (paid leave, childcare services, and financial transfers) was found to have a positive influence, suggesting that the addition of these supports for working parents in a continuum during early childhood was likely to facilitate parents' choice to have children. Policy levers did not have similar weight, however: cash benefits covering childhood after the year of childbirth and the coverage of childcare services for children under age 3 had a larger potential influence on fertility than leave entitlements and benefits granted around childbirth.
Source: Angela Luci and Olivier Thevenon, The Impact of Family Policy Packages on Fertility Trends in Developed Countries, Working Paper 174, Institut National d Etudes Demographiques (Paris)
Links: Paper
Date: 2012-Jun
The coalition government announced (following consultation) that forcing someone to marry would become a criminal offence in England and Wales.
Source: Press release 8 June 2012, Downing Street
Links: Downing Street press release | Home Office press release | Consultation responses | HOC research brief | Nottingham University press release | Roehampton University press release | BBC report | Guardian report | Telegraph report
Notes: Consultation document (December 2011)
Date: 2012-Jun
A report examined what sustained and nurtured families, and what equipped some families to overcome problems better than others. In times of austerity, it was the closest family ties that offered the most financial and emotional support – rather than friends, the wider family, or community networks. The financial downturn was dominating family life, with some families close to financial breaking point: but the impact was not universal, with young people, young families, 'homemakers', unemployed people, and students suffering most. Women were also feeling less resilient, citing financial problems as causing them greater worry than men. The report identified five key drivers of resilience: planning and control; the family support network; work status; perceived change in family life; sharing experiences and knowledge.
Source: Family Resilience: Exploring what makes families better able to cope with life s challenges, Scottish Widows Centre for the Modern Family
Links: Report
Date: 2012-Jun
An article examined issues related to family law and family rights in Europe. It identified four separate 'models' for legislative approaches: the absolute nuclear family, the egalitarian nuclear family, the birth family, and the community family.
Source: Maria Isabel Garrido Gomez, 'Family law and family rights in question', Social and Public Policy Review, Volume 6 Issue 2
Links: Article
Date: 2012-Jun
An article examined fears that the traditional family was disappearing; and that new forms of family were not worthy of the title. There was no clear-cut case that the decline of the traditional family was a bad thing, and no good reason to worry that the family – in all of its myriad forms – did not have a future.
Source: David Archard, 'The future of the family', Ethics and Social Welfare, Volume 6 Issue 2
Links: Abstract
Date: 2012-May
The Queen's Speech set out the coalition government's legislative programme for 2012-13. It included plans for a Children and Families Bill. There would be more flexible leave arrangements for parents, 'father-friendly' access arrangements following relationship breakdowns, faster adoption processes, and better help for pupils with special educational needs. The children's rights watchdog would be made more independent from ministers, and given powers to carry out assessments of the impact of government policy on children.
Source: Queen's Speech, 9 May 2012, columns 3-5, House of Commons Hansard, TSO
Links: Hansard | Cabinet Office briefing | DE press release | Barnardos press release | CDC press release | Childrens Commissioner press release | Childrens Society press release | CRAE press release | EDCM press release | Family Lives press release | Fawcett Society press release | 4Children press release | NAHT press release | Nasen press release | NFM press release | Scope press release | Unicef press release | BBC report | Guardian report
Date: 2012-May
An article examined fears in a number of European countries that foreign, particularly Islamic, family law was becoming entrenched.
Source: Andrea Buchler, 'Islamic family law in Europe? From dichotomies to discourse – or: beyond cultural and religious identity in family law', International Journal of Law in Context, Volume 8 Issue 2
Links: Abstract
Date: 2012-May
A think-tank report accused the coalition government of a 'string of policy failures and omissions' in its approach to tackling family breakdown. It highlighted the 'dangerous lack of progress' in introducing transferrable tax allowances or in eliminating the 'couple penalty' in the welfare system. Ministers were repeating the mistake of the previous Labour administration by making childcare and parental leave their chief preoccupations.
Source: Building a Social Recovery? A second year report card on the coalition government, Centre for Social Justice
Links: Report | Guardian report | Telegraph report
Date: 2012-May
An article said that family relationships did not have any special value compared with other close relationships. In the case of families with children, however, a high degree of commitment between adults might be useful or even necessary for advancing children's well-being. This could be a reason to give special protection to relationships between co-parents.
Source: Anca Gheaus, 'Is the family uniquely valuable?', Ethics and Social Welfare, Volume 6 Issue 2
Links: Abstract
Date: 2012-May
An article examined tensions in the neo-liberal advocacy of the traditional family. These were that 'family values' ran directly counter to the 'homo economicus' of the free market; and that the increasingly strident rhetoric of the family belied its decreasing popularity. Earlier critiques were worth revisiting for what they had to say about the family – whether in biological or in social form – as a structure of ownership.
Source: Bob Brecher, 'The family and neoliberalism: time to revive a critique', Ethics and Social Welfare, Volume 6 Issue 2
Links: Abstract
Date: 2012-May
A new book said that much of society's thinking in relation to children's behaviour was linked to misplaced assumptions rooted in views from the past. Morality was not something that just happened to children: it was part of their everyday lives. The author highlighted the extent to which children engaged with questions of morality as they sought to navigate the complexities of the social world around them. Children should be seen as active members of society, with both the capacity and understanding to grapple with discourses of morality.
Source: Sam Frankel, Children, Morality and Society, Palgrave Macmillan
Links: Summary
Date: 2012-Apr
An article examined family and relationships policies in England and Wales over the period 1997-2011.
Source: Martina Klett-Davies, 'A critical analysis of family and relationships policies in England and Wales (1997-2011)', Families, Relationships and Societies, Volume 1 Number 1
Links: Abstract
Date: 2012-Mar
An article examined public policy on the family in developed (OECD) countries. The balance of underlying policy objectives varied between countries: in some, family policy was largely driven by concerns about persistently low birth rates, while in others such concerns were not considered to be within the public domain. Across the OECD policy-makers were concerned about child well-being and child development: but the intensity with which policy was driven by gender equity concerns varied considerably.
Source: Willem Adema, 'Setting the scene: the mix of family policy objectives and packages across the OECD', Children and Youth Services Review, Volume 34 Issue 3
Links: Abstract
Date: 2012-Mar
A new book examined the importance of geographical processes for policies and professional practices related to childhood and youth, drawing primarily on examples from the United Kingdom.
Source: Peter Kraftl, John Horton, and Faith Tucker (eds.), Critical Geographies of Childhood and Youth: Contemporary policy and practice, Policy Press
Links: Summary | Leicester University press release
Date: 2012-Mar
A new textbook examined children's place within society through an examination of the different contexts within which a child existed – including the family, educational settings, the community, the nation, and the world as a whole. The child's own perspective was explored, recognizing children as social agents in their own right. It examined the recent policy climate, such as the 'Every Child Matters' agenda, and modern public perceptions of childhood.
Source: Rory McDowall Clark, Childhood in Society for Early Childhood Studies, SAGE Publications
Links: Summary
Date: 2012-Mar
An article argued for retaining the concept of the family, in the face of recent trends towards a focus instead on personal life, intimacy, and kinship.
Source: Rosalind Edwards and Val Gillies, 'Farewell to family? Notes on an argument for retaining the concept', Families, Relationships and Societies, Volume 1 Number 1
Links: Abstract
Date: 2012-Mar
A think-tank paper said that a new transferable tax allowance for married couples (in line with Conservative Party policy) would help to fight poverty more effectively than increasing the income tax threshold to £10,000 (in line with Liberal Democrat policy). Increasing the income tax threshold would benefit the richest groups more than the poorest, whereas recognizing marriage in the tax system would give the greatest help to those on lower incomes.
Source: It Is Time to Back Marriage, Centre for Social Justice
Links: Paper
Date: 2012-Feb
A new textbook provided an overview of the basic concepts and theories related to families.
Source: Jane Ribbens McCarthy, Megan Doolittle, and Shelley Day Sclater, Understanding Family Meanings: A reflective text, Policy Press
Links: Summary
Date: 2012-Feb
A report examined future changes in family and household structures in developed (OECD) countries; identified what appeared to be the main forces shaping the family landscape over the period to 2030; discussed the longer-term challenges for policy arising from those expected changes; and suggested policy options for managing the challenges on a sustainable basis.
Source: The Future of Families to 2030, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
Links: Summary
Date: 2012-Jan
An annual report said that half a million children in the United Kingdom were unhappy with their lives. A linked report set out six key priorities needed for a happy childhood: the conditions to learn and develop; a positive view of self and an identity that was respected; having enough of what mattered; positive relationships with family and friends; a safe and suitable home environment and local area; and an opportunity to take part in positive activities.
Source: Gwyther Rees, Haridhan Goswami, Larissa Pople, Jonathan Bradshaw, Antonia Keung, and Gill Main, The Good Childhood Report 2012: A review of our children s well-being, Children s Society | Promoting Positive Well-Being for Children: A report for decision-makers in parliament, central government and local areas, Children s Society
Links: Report | Summary | Priorities | Childrens Society press release | Community Care report | Guardian report | Telegraph report
Date: 2012-Jan
A paper provided a brief guide to sources of data on families and households, including the Labour Force Survey.
Source: Comparing Data Sources on Families and Households, Office for National Statistics
Links: Briefing
Date: 2012-Jan