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Do not nationalize child-rearing, family does it best
By Staff Writer
Posted: March 29, 2006
Family Policy, Family Changes by Patricia Morgan compares the state
of the family in secular Sweden, Catholic Italy and Britain. One of the
most striking points of comparison is the extent to which the state
interferes in family life, especially the rearing of children, in each of the
countries.
Sweden
Sweden is famous for its comprehensive, top-down, social
engineering, which makes it difficult for people to live in any other way
than that prescribed by the state. Initially in response to concerns about
falling population: 'the state took on, and socialised, many family
responsibilities to a degree unseen outside of the Soviet bloc, not least
the rearing of children in crèches (p.29).
Supposedly to get women to have more children, the state undertook a
massive programme to ensure that all women would be able to work,
regardless of whether they had children or not, and would be treated
exactly the same as men. There was no recognition of marriage, so
single parents would theoretically suffer no disadvantage as a result of
their status, nor was there any recognition of the division of labour and
responsibilities within the home. Women and men, whether married or
not, were treated as individuals by the state. This meant that a
combination of high taxes and benefits linked to workforce participation
made it almost impossible for mothers to stay at home while fathers
went out to work to support their families.
Italy
The Italian situation is almost the complete opposite. Under Fascism,
women were used to breed soldiers, with marriage and baby bonuses,
and a prohibition on women in the workforce. As a result, pro-family
public policies are more strongly linked to extreme militarism in Italy
than almost anywhere in the world.
People neither want nor expect the state to do anything to support
families, and this is compounded by the Catholic church's traditional
view that the family should be outside the state's sphere of influence -
and that includes financial support for the family (p.81). As a result, Italy
is one of only three EU countries (the other two are Greece and Spain)
that have no universal child or family allowances. Family allowances in
Italy are means-tested and are extremely
low by European standards (pp.84-5).
Britain
The British situation is different again, although it is much closer to
Sweden than Italy under Gordon Brown's regime that treats people as
units of production rather than unique individuals. Theoretically
the state supports the family by supporting individuals in whatever
choices they make, without discriminating in favour of any one family
type. In fact, as Morgan shows, the system is so heavily skewed in
favour of lone-parent and two-earner families that life is made difficult
for single-earner, two-parent families, as in Sweden. 'The lone parent
is the family form preferred by the tax/benefit system' (p.113).
The author suggests that the promotion of policies to undermine the
traditional family, like the scrapping of the Marriage Allowance and the
transfer of rights and obligations which used to pertain to marriage to
all relationships, is part of New Labour's programme of increased
state control of our private lives: 'This is why totalitarian regimes in the
twentieth century found themselves on a collision course with families
and often preferred promiscuity and lone parenthood, since there are
no boundaries and barriers here to state intervention. (p.118).
Patricia Morgan compares the outcomes of these different approaches.
Britain is well known for its family problems. It tops the league tables in
several of the most worrying indicators of breakdown, such as divorce
and teenage pregnancy. Sweden has even higher rates of out-of-
wedlock births (55%) and cohabitation (15% of couples) than Britain.
Italy, however, with no government programme of intervention on behalf
of the family, is still the home of the traditional family.
In Sweden, the measures introduced by the state to get women into the
workforce may actually be keeping them out of it, or preventing them
from achieving equal outcomes with men. Generous maternity leave of
two-and-a-half years per child, topped up with lavish sick-leave
provisions once mothers return to work, make employers wary of taking
on women, or of giving them responsible jobs. The female workforce in
Sweden has been described as a 'Potemkin workforce' because on any
given day 20 per cent of all female workers are off on some kind of paid
leave.
In spite of all the social engineering, women do not regard work as the
most important thing in their lives. 'Women continue to perform the
larger part of unpaid household domestic duties (p.59)… Three-
quarters of fathers and two-thirds of mothers still believed in the 1980s
that men should be the principal breadwinners' (p.60). Morgan criticises
the feminist activists who see every woman's life in terms of her 'career':
'Most people have jobs, not careers, and such statements are made by
professional elites who want to recast the world in their own image; one
where every woman is a Patricia Hewitt doppelganger' (p.89).
### ### ###
Family Policy, Family Changes: Sweden, Italy and Britain Compared
Author: Patricia Morgan
Published by: Civitas
www.civitas.org.uk
By Staff Writer
Posted: March 29, 2006
Family Policy, Family Changes by Patricia Morgan compares the state
of the family in secular Sweden, Catholic Italy and Britain. One of the
most striking points of comparison is the extent to which the state
interferes in family life, especially the rearing of children, in each of the
countries.
Sweden
Sweden is famous for its comprehensive, top-down, social
engineering, which makes it difficult for people to live in any other way
than that prescribed by the state. Initially in response to concerns about
falling population: 'the state took on, and socialised, many family
responsibilities to a degree unseen outside of the Soviet bloc, not least
the rearing of children in crèches (p.29).
Supposedly to get women to have more children, the state undertook a
massive programme to ensure that all women would be able to work,
regardless of whether they had children or not, and would be treated
exactly the same as men. There was no recognition of marriage, so
single parents would theoretically suffer no disadvantage as a result of
their status, nor was there any recognition of the division of labour and
responsibilities within the home. Women and men, whether married or
not, were treated as individuals by the state. This meant that a
combination of high taxes and benefits linked to workforce participation
made it almost impossible for mothers to stay at home while fathers
went out to work to support their families.
Italy
The Italian situation is almost the complete opposite. Under Fascism,
women were used to breed soldiers, with marriage and baby bonuses,
and a prohibition on women in the workforce. As a result, pro-family
public policies are more strongly linked to extreme militarism in Italy
than almost anywhere in the world.
People neither want nor expect the state to do anything to support
families, and this is compounded by the Catholic church's traditional
view that the family should be outside the state's sphere of influence -
and that includes financial support for the family (p.81). As a result, Italy
is one of only three EU countries (the other two are Greece and Spain)
that have no universal child or family allowances. Family allowances in
Italy are means-tested and are extremely
low by European standards (pp.84-5).
Britain
The British situation is different again, although it is much closer to
Sweden than Italy under Gordon Brown's regime that treats people as
units of production rather than unique individuals. Theoretically
the state supports the family by supporting individuals in whatever
choices they make, without discriminating in favour of any one family
type. In fact, as Morgan shows, the system is so heavily skewed in
favour of lone-parent and two-earner families that life is made difficult
for single-earner, two-parent families, as in Sweden. 'The lone parent
is the family form preferred by the tax/benefit system' (p.113).
The author suggests that the promotion of policies to undermine the
traditional family, like the scrapping of the Marriage Allowance and the
transfer of rights and obligations which used to pertain to marriage to
all relationships, is part of New Labour's programme of increased
state control of our private lives: 'This is why totalitarian regimes in the
twentieth century found themselves on a collision course with families
and often preferred promiscuity and lone parenthood, since there are
no boundaries and barriers here to state intervention. (p.118).
Patricia Morgan compares the outcomes of these different approaches.
Britain is well known for its family problems. It tops the league tables in
several of the most worrying indicators of breakdown, such as divorce
and teenage pregnancy. Sweden has even higher rates of out-of-
wedlock births (55%) and cohabitation (15% of couples) than Britain.
Italy, however, with no government programme of intervention on behalf
of the family, is still the home of the traditional family.
In Sweden, the measures introduced by the state to get women into the
workforce may actually be keeping them out of it, or preventing them
from achieving equal outcomes with men. Generous maternity leave of
two-and-a-half years per child, topped up with lavish sick-leave
provisions once mothers return to work, make employers wary of taking
on women, or of giving them responsible jobs. The female workforce in
Sweden has been described as a 'Potemkin workforce' because on any
given day 20 per cent of all female workers are off on some kind of paid
leave.
In spite of all the social engineering, women do not regard work as the
most important thing in their lives. 'Women continue to perform the
larger part of unpaid household domestic duties (p.59)… Three-
quarters of fathers and two-thirds of mothers still believed in the 1980s
that men should be the principal breadwinners' (p.60). Morgan criticises
the feminist activists who see every woman's life in terms of her 'career':
'Most people have jobs, not careers, and such statements are made by
professional elites who want to recast the world in their own image; one
where every woman is a Patricia Hewitt doppelganger' (p.89).
### ### ###
Family Policy, Family Changes: Sweden, Italy and Britain Compared
Author: Patricia Morgan
Published by: Civitas
www.civitas.org.uk