Conceptualising Family Life and Family Policies.

Autor/in	Edgar, Don
Institution	Australian Inst. of Family Studies, Melbourne.
Titel	Conceptualising Family Life and Family Policies.
Quelle	(1991), (28 Seiten) PDF als Volltext kostenfreie Datei Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Monographie
Schlagwörter	Stellungnahme; Definitions; Extended Family; Family Income; Family Programs; Family Relationship; Family Role; Family (Sociological Unit); Family Structure; Foreign Countries; International Programs; Policy Formation + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Begriffsbestimmung; Großfamilie; Familieneinkommen; Family program; Familienprogramm; Familie; Familienkonstellation; Familiensystem; Ausland; Politische Betätigung
Abstract	The United Nations International Year of the Family 1994 will give policymakers the opportunity to bring together threads of social life that have previously been treated separately. The danger in talking about the concept of "the family" lies both in its abstractness and in its emotional, religious, and political overtones. To avoid this definitional quicksand, people must be reminded that every individual has a family (of origin at least); that the family changes throughout the course of an individual's life and throughout history as social circumstances change; and that the family does not stop at the household level, but is often maintained across generations and sustained across several households. Five propositions can help to conceptualize the family in a way that clarifies directions for family policies: (1) The family unit is a system of cooperation based on the combination of human and other resources and a structured distribution of costs and benefits; (2) The family system of cooperation focuses on two main sets of tasks: income generation and care for oneself, one's partner, and one's dependents; (3) The family system of cooperation results in a duality of joint benefits and unequal rewards; (4) The nature of family life and of the civil society in which it is embedded depend on and contribute to the balance between state and free market coordination of social structures; and (5) Social policies should have as their central objective the maintenance and improvement of family well-being. (AC)
Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC