DURING the last twenty years the family has undergone changes (see chart). The family unit is difficult to identify. In particular what is supposed to be the typical' male with a non-working wife plus children only eight per cent of the labour force today.
The number of families has doubled in recent years to the extent that the model of the nuclear family is not the typical household unit.
Still, BEETOSL people pass some kind of nuclear family unit during lives, the Family found that the vast majority of people aspire to that model. ' In particular the institution of marriage shows a massive durability. Only 14 per cent of men and 8 per cent of women never marry. Ninety per cent of young people expect to get married.
Nevertheless the family is in crisis. One in three marriages end in divorce. As many as one in five children born today parents before the children are 16 years old.
ding to a 1981 study.? his nas to be scen backdrop of makes up single parent hold is of through different means-tested Commission women can expect to look in their lives.3 who divorce constituted 25 per cent and 4 per cent respectively of all violent crime accoragainst the economic social deprivation which are the consequences of the Tories' attacks outlined above. Today nearly 1,300,000 children are in families where the head of the housework. Means-tested benefits interacting with falling income tax thresholds sets the notorious poverty trap into motion: income increases, a family begins to lose its entitlement to pays higher taxation and national insurance contributions.
Cut backs in health care for the mean that today one in two after an elderly or disabled relative at some time The Tories' response to this crisis of the family has been the type of strategy outlined bysthe Think Tank, leaked to the press at the beginning of this year.
Think Tank lie the ideas of Tory advisors like Ferdinand - over retirement age Two or more bcobic • one or more over - a vicer Tentencil arc Married couple only Married couples with 1 or 2 dependent CHUC Married couple with 3 or more dependent Married couple with independent child (ren)
Lone-parent with al east one dependent child Lone-parent with dependent child (ren) OftV Two or more Total households Source: Social trends, 12, HMSO, 1981, Table 2:2. looking after their elderly might be better rewarded; give more encouragement to community-based services like day or short term care. • Preventing crime. responsible for some of the anti-social behaviour of their children. • The moral environment. the desirability of more active government role in dealing with pornography, sex shops, television and press violence.
The philosophy that these proposals is, according to a prominent member of the Cabinet committee Patrick Jenkin, the idea that:
THE IDEAS of personal liberation and freedom which are the main targets of Mount and the Tories do not inform the thinking of the present leadership of the Labour Party.
"The family is the most important unit of our community. That is why for the first time in our country our government is putting forward what amounts to a national family policy. Our aim is straightforward the stability and quality of family life in While the rhetoric is Mount's, Jim Callaghan was actually providing a rationalisation for the cut required from his own government by the International Monetary Fund. But it would be facile to assume an identity between Mount's views and those of the leadership of the Labour Party's.
Underlying current Labour Party policy on the family, and in particular Labour's manifesto, are the ideas of Lord Beveridge.
a Vigorian housemaid — the rich object to socialisation of housework, but have always found their own way around domestic amily ments in any fundamental sense and is a haven from them.
From this Mount draws the conclusion that what the family needs is to be left alone. He claims that the working class family has carried out a 'permanent revolution' against all those forces which have tried to interfere with it.
The most dangerous enemies of the family today are come with the best intentions, but come armed all the same with statutory powers and administrative instruments; education officers, children's officers, arenilects, planners not intruding in po pue These people Mount accuses private space.' Services run down The consistency of approach between this position and the Think Tank proposals can immediately be seen. The net result is a continuation of the present policies of the Tories and a further future been forced to promote 'law and order' type demagogy nographers, in order to more clearly demarcate the boundaries of the famiSuch rhetoric, the bag and baggage of the 'Victorian' approach, creates a more favourable climate for the growth of right wing forces such as the Society for the Protection of the Unborn Child whose growth has a reciprocal effect on Tory policies.
However the kernel of the Tories' policy on women reflected in the Think Tank proposals to drive women out of the workforce and into the home. This policy has met with considerable success as we have shown albeit with some unexpected results. For example in South Wales it is estimated that women will soon outnumber men in the workforce because the structure of industry favours keeping women in low paid but profitable industries. Nevertheless currently being DULcampaign women the