Families, Public Policy Issues and

Definitions

Karen Bogenschneider articulated a broad definition of policy as a statement, regulation, rule, law, or code adopted for pursuing a course of action. Policies are developed by governments, businesses or other organizations, individuals, families, teachers, coaches, friends, and spouses—to name just a few possibilities. Therefore, public policy is but one kind of policy, that which is proposed and produced by any branch of government (executive, legislative, judicial) at any level of government (federal, state, local). Public policy includes every manner of interest to governments and to citizens, for example, defense policy, health policy, environmental policy, monetary policy, and, indeed, family policy. Family policies affect families in one or more ways, but family policies may or may not be public policies.

Here are several examples of policies (1–3 are public policies that affect families, whereas 4 and 5 are private sector family policies):

• 1.
  Public Law 94–142 (1975), Education of All Handicapped Children Act (now, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act) provides among other things for a free appropriate public education for all children with disabilities.
• 2.
  There will be a 60 percent increase in the minimum wage phased in over a 5-year period.
• 3.
  In a state, there is a legal right for same-sex couples to marry, or there is not a legal right to do the same.
• 4.
  A family agrees that “we will eat at least 3 dinners a week at home together.”
• 5.
  A company will provide, for full-time workers who have been in its employ for more than 10 months, 4 days of paid leave per year to perform home care for family members.

Contextual Issues, Public Policy, and Families

As is the case of family development generally, public policies of importance to families are not islands unto themselves. During the most recent three to four decades, family scholars such as Urie Bronfenbrenner (the ecology of human development), Richard Lerner (developmental contex-tualism), and Glen Elder Jr. (family life course development) have developed comprehensive approaches to explain the role that extra-familial factors play in family issues more fully. During this same period, there have been significant demographic changes in family structure and functioning in U.S. society, just as there have been in most other countries.

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