Family Structure Trends in Europe Essay -- Papers Home Family Divorce

The implication for social policy as a result of the changing face of the ‘family’ has been enormous. In order to evaluate them adequately, I shall look at 4 main transitory factors which have had, and are continuing to have, implications for social policy, specifically within Europe. These are: Downward trend in marriages, the rise in single parent/lone parent families, increasing participation of women in the workforce and their consequent economical success, and the incessantly declining rate of fertility. The notion of family thirty years ago was relatively simple. A married couple, two children, an extended family in the form of grandparents and even a pet were seen as constituting the norm. One of the main factors that influenced the fragmentation of this image, in Britain at least, was the introduction of The Divorce Reform Act in 1969 (Glennester, pg 163). The immediate period after the introduction of this law, brought on by considerable pressure from feminists in the 1960s period of liberalism, witnessed a sudden influx in the number of women abandoning their marriages in search of bigger and better things. Married couples were increasingly becoming separate entities, and, over time, this pattern has altered to an extent that marriage is now losing its hold as an important social institution. Lewis (1992 In: Glennester Howard:British Social Policy since 1945 pp 164) made use of the Male Breadwinning Model to depict the belief system upon which social policies were initially formed; women were dependent upon the male, unlikely to participate in the labour work force after marriage and likely to remain in the domest... ...ng policies. The rising irregularities in family life can also be seen as a result of the contradictions within existing policies. Whereas on the one hand the state urges its members to show increasing participation in the labour force, it also encourages the maintenance of the traditional notions of 'family.' This requires females to remain at home and men to dominate in the financial domain, a lifestyle which is unlikely; financial requirements of raising children are now are so high that it needs dual work, which in turn increases individualisation, one primary reason the state is in a frenzy with regards to childcare. What is required is a balance between the two variations; the traditional and the new, but whether social policy can incorporate the new 'fluctuating' family into it's make up remains to be seen.