Summary
Contents
Subject index
Family Policy and the American Safety Net shows how families adapt to economic and demographic change. Government programs provide a safety net against the new risks of modern life. Family policy includes any public program that helps families perform their four universal obligations of caregiving, income provision, shelter, and transmission of citizenship. In America, this means that child care, health care, Social Security, unemployment insurance, housing, the quality of neighborhood schools, and antidiscrimination and immigration measures are all key elements of a de facto family policy. Yet many students and citizens are unaware of the history and importance of these programs. This book argues that family policy is as important as economic and defense policy to the future of the nation, a message that is relevant to students in the social sciences, social policy, and social work as well as to the public at large.
The Gender Factor
Probably the most important single factor in the growth of family policy has been the change in women's roles. I say women's roles, not gender roles, because the change in men's roles has been of a different order and much less dramatic in its impact on the family. Since women's traditional place has been in the family, their movement into the workforce has meant that family life has had to change and that some other way of doing the household chores such as cooking, cleaning, laundry, and child tending has had to be found. The massive recent changes in family life challenge everyone's sense of meaning and expectations of how to be good husbands and wives, what to expect of ...
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