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Ann. Rev. Social. 1979. 5:275-302 Copyright 1979 by Annual Reviews

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SOCIAL POLICY AND THE FAMILY


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.,. 10579

Janet Zollinger Giele


Florence Heller Graduate School, Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts
02154

INTRODUCTION
In America the family policy field is so new that there is no ready framework with which to organize recent developments and research prog ress. Had it not been for confluence of three powerful social movements civil rights, the war on poverty, and the women's movement-American concern with the impact of social policy on the family might have been even longer delayed. A decade ago in an insightful introduction to Alva Myrdal's Nation and Family, Daniel Moynihan (1968) suggested that Americans, in contrast to Europeans, have avoided policies directed toward the family because their religious and ethnic heteogeneity makes them unable to agree on any single family norm. Nevertheless, since the US Senate Subcommittee on Children and Youth

(1973) held hearings that produced the "Mondale Report," there

has been growing readiness in both political and scholarly circles to explore the relevance of social policy to the family. Research has progressed most rapidly on two fronts: first, in describing the negative impact of particular policies on special groups of individuals or families; and second, in elaborating and classifying the wide variety of policies thought to have relevance for the family. Much less is known about how to construct poliCies that will foster or enhance the quality of family life. One reason for this is the great variety of family forms; what is good for one type may not be the same for others. Progress therefore awaits advances in understanding both the variety of family forms and models of family process. An additional important issue is the relation of the individual's well being to that of the family.

275 0360-0572179/0815-0275$01.00

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This review touches all these developments and continuing dilemmas. First it locates the emerging field of American family policy studies in rela tion to their European precursors and in relation to evolving contemporary American definitions of the family. Then it maps two major types of social policy-for special populations, and in support of family functions-that have been the subject of most recent family impact studies. Finally it takes up several emerging methodological issues-the construction of social indi cators to measure impact on individual and family, and the need for models of the dynamic process by which social policy affects the family.
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CHANGING DEFINITIONS OF POLICY AND FAMILY To place current developments in the family policy field in their proper con text it is first necessary to review the changes that have occurred in defining the scope of relevant policy and then in defining the family unit itself. Over a thirty-year period a narrow definition of family policy has by and large given way to acknowledgment that any poliCY that has important conse quences for the family is relevant. At the same time the definition of family has also changed to include alternative family forms and familial behavior by nOnfamily members as well as traditional family units. These changes are significant because they require interdisciplinary cooperation, not only to describe the wide range of relevant policies, but also to explore different models of family process that apply to a variety of families.

Family Policy Old and New


European experience with declining birth rates in the 1930s gave rise to some of the clearest examples of unified government policy for the family. The narrow goal of raising the birth rate in countries such as Sweden and France engendered a number of positive family-oriented programs including housing subsidies, special provisions for maternal and child health, and sys tems of child and family allowances. Alva Myrdal's (1968) description of the Swedish program, first published in Sweden in 1934, is the classic
primer for all contemporary scholars interested in family policy. Her treatise

a broad spectrum of relevant measures that indirectly affect family functioning and ultimately the birth rate. The chapter headings are indicative: preparation for family life, economics of homemaking, housing, nutrition (school meals, protective diets for mothers and babies), free health services for children, old age security, and changing roles of women. When reissued in the United States in 1968, Myrdal's book provided a ready model for mapping potential American policy initiatives with respect to current social issues such as al leviation of poverty or liberation of women.
begins with the population replacement issue but then leads into

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277

Around the same time another tradition of family policy research made its appearance in the work of British author Margaret Wynn

(1972), who fo

cused on the family's investment in children at different points in the life cycle. Calling attention to the fact that three fourths of the next generation were then being raised by only

22% of United Kingdom households, she

asked how the costs of rearing children can be more evenly distributed. Her suggestions reach beyond direct income tax subsidies; she concludes that "family policy. . . . must be concerned with affect the

all social arrangements as they


and

family." This means housing, education, health care,

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mother's hours and conditions of employment. While both Myrdal and Wynn were primarily concerned with the family as the principal social group for bringing up children and thus emphasized its nurturant functions, their works also anticipated a much more comprehen sive view of family policy. After reading them, one can imagine analogous policies for other vulnerable groups besides children and in support of other family functions besides nuturance. Indeed, boundaries. In

in the last decade several teams

of investigators have set out to map the field using this wider vision of its

1967 a special issue of the Journal of Marriage and Family reviewed a

number of government programs in relation to the family. Mental health programs, health care, economic measures, education, and housing were all examined from the perspective of their impact on family life. It is indicative of the development of the field at that time that in his introduction the issue editor, Marvin Sussman

(1967), commented, "The content of this issue is,

to my knowledge, the first publication effort to review existing governmental programs and their relationships to the structure and function of the Ameri can family. " Not for several more years were other comprehensive surveys attempted, and then with somewhat different purposes and perspectives. Giele bert

& Lam (1975) surveyed several program areas to examine current perceptions

of policy-family interaction. By relying on the core bibliographies in each field, interviews with researchers at major academic centers, and trends in the activity of funding and advocacy groups, they documented a growing realization that the family was important both as vehicle and object of policy impact in the six fields they covered: population and family planning, hous ing, care of the elderly, child care, income maintenance, and family stabili zation. Using a different technique-analysis of policy and program objec tives-Kamerman

& Kahn (1976) described another set of US social ser

vices (child care, child protection, community services for the aged, and family planning) and contended that they represented a new social program field: personal social services. Then Kamerman

& Kahn (1978) compared

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social services in fourteen countries and significantly entitled their report

Family Policy. This book provides a much more comprehensive framework:


to describe policies relevant to the family. Programs are classified in terms of sectors (income transfers, tax policy, personal social services, health, housing, education, and employment) and of target groups (children, youth, aged, women). In this way the authors provide two different approaches to family policy analysis that represent a useful point of departure for future work in the field. The sector analysis applies to the family system and is primarily concerned with support of family functions. The target-groups analysis views family impact from the standpoint of the individual members and thus relies on demographic techniques and perspective. The current work of the Family Impact Seminar (1978a,b) employs the same fundamental distinctions. Using the Catalog of Federal Assistance, the Seminar staff recently produced an inventory of federal programs with direct impact on families. Programs of major government agencies are analyzed (using number of dollars funded, etc) according to whether they have direct impact on three dimensions or functions of family life (membership, mate rial support, nurturance/health) and on several target groups (children, youth, adults, or explicit family groups). In addition the interim report (Fam ily Impact Seminar 1978b) recognizes a third set of variables to be taken into account: the many varieties of family that differ by socioeconomic status, stage of the family life cycle, composition, etc. These recent efforts to map policies relevant to family impact do not, however, spell out specific goals or processes. Thus they sadly lack the focus and dynamic that characterized the work of Myrdal and Wynn. In 1962 Alvin Schorr (1968b) pictured a day when the United States would develop a "family policy" like other advanced industrial societies, but he noted that it would require "consensus on a core of family goals, toward the realization of which the nation deliberately shapes programs and policies. " The closest thing to this conception of family policy turned out to be abortive. The only writer besides Schorr who used the term "family policy" in the 1960s was Daniel Moynihan (1965b). Moynihan was the first to weld together several crucial variables in a model of policy-family interaction. First he depicted a vicious cycle of poverty caused by external conditions (unemployment) that adversely affected the parents' (particularly the father's) role in the family. The result was poor socialization of children, low performance in school, difficulty in getting a job, and repeat of the cycle in the next generation. His formula for intervention relied on psitive in come maintenance policies to strengthen internal family structure and pro duce a more successful outcome for the children. All in all , shorn of its political overtones, the Moynihan report (Moynihan 1965a) still stands as a bold synthesis that provided a model of connected

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variables and a picture of the policy-family system at a crucial time in the development of the field. But as we know, the proposal, tom by charges and

countercharges of racism, proved a political disaster (Rainwater & Yancey,


1967). Even though Moynihan (1973) applied the same logic to poor white families, and followed it in his design of the Family Assistance Plan for a guaranteed minimum income, the conceptual advances of his initial model were lost in the political fray.

There is a lesson in this story: When an intellectual model of the policy family process becomes identified with a normative model representing only one family type, those who feel their culture or family pattern denigrated will naturally resist, and inaction will result from a clash of goals. Thus
there must be great sensitivity to the wide variety of family forms and behav ior if future plans for national action are not to repeat the same mistake. As current new definitions of the family are tried, we may hope that this sen sitivity will grow.

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Definition of Famity
Recent definitions of the family have changed in at least two ways-with respect to family membership and with respect to family functions. The American definition of family, as expressed by the US Bureau of the Census (1973), is a group of two or more persons residing together who are related by blood, marriage, ordoption. Not including those persons living apart who defined themselves as family, some

90% of the population live in

families. Yet a number of authors have recently contended that the ideal

nuclear family -understood in the usual sense as an employed breadwinner husband, nonemployed wife, and dependent children-is clearly in the
minority. The majority do not have dependent children, and there are now more husband-wife families with both partners in the labor force (41%) than families with a husband who is the sole breadwinner (34%) (Sussman 1976;

Hayghe 1976; Watts & Skidmore 1978a). These changes demonstrate that the Census definition of household or family is not synonymous with any single family model. In addition other changes have emphasized that the official family defini
tion may be too inflexible. Families change over time, and some relation ships are familial in fact even though they are not formally recognized as such. During the 1960s an eight-fold increase occurred in the number of couples living together without marriage. The number of communes grew.

And the number of primary individuals (living alone) continued to grow. The divorce rate rose to between 30 and 40% (Glick 1975). The life cycle also appeared less predictable, with more possibility of taking education, career change, and leisure in a different order. Government programs such as Aid to Families with Dependent Children found that, in defining as eligi-

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ble families who did not have a father in the home, they created incentives for family-splitting rather than family stability (Lerman 1973). All of these cross-currents have raised to a new level of consciousness the question of how best to define the family-in terms of family relationship, household composition, or simply as a group of individuals. Watts

& Skidmore (1978a) propose that a distinction be more clearly

made between a household and a family. Household would refer to the "liv ing or domestic unit and thus include all persons who are sharing the full use of a dwelling unit's facilities." (Family might or might not coincide with these living units.) They then propose a household classification with seven categories that takes into account the different possible conjugal and kin relationships: single persons, couples, parent-child units, other households with children or related dependents, related adult units, nonfamilial adult groups, and institutions. The Watts

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& Skidmore typology expands the definition of family in two

ways. First, by using household as the major criterion for classification it associates certain membership units with families who before were not de fined as families (e.g. couples who may not be married). Second, although not intentionally, it suggests that "family-like" behavior may be occurring in nonfamilies simply by virtue of their sharing a household (e.g. non familial adult groups, institutions). This latter theme accords with a recent recognition by sociologists that familial (affective) behavior sometimes occurs outside the family, and likewise nonfamily (rational, instrumental) activity occurs in the home (Kanter 1977). Such a change in definition accords with the greater potential crossover and interpenetration of family and nonfamily boundaries that characterize modern society (Giele 1978). It is perhaps this underlying structural condi tion that currently brings policy for families to the center of national atten tion. Small family units that with industrialization lost important economic and social functions must now inevitably rely on outside institutions for help. At the same time society in its programs for vulnerable individuals must rely on the intimacy and flexibility that only the family can easily supply. Growing insight into this necessarily cooperative interchange has brought the discovery of the family to the policy domains outlined below.

POLICIES FOR SPECIAL POPULATIONS


To include policies for the aging, children, women, and other vulnerable groups under a consideration of family policy, it is necessary to state a rationale, since many of the relevant works themselves do not make the connection entirely explicit. As we have seen, certain European countries

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based their family policies in the 1930s on a visible demographic change such as fall in the birth rate. Today a large number of social policies for the family continue to have a demographic origin. in the sense of being directed to a particular population distinguished by a characteristic such as age. sex. health status, race, or socioeconomic status. In this type of policy it is not the family itself but its dependent members who are the intended clients for positive programs. Yet the public attempts to help dependent groups eventually involve the family in one way or another, either as a group whose help can be enlisted or as an institution whose characteristics must be imitated if the vulnerable are to be cared for in dignified and humane fashion. The demographic processes that augment Of decrease these dependent populations are thus of interest to the policy analyst. In a critical appraisal of where the welfare state is headed, Zald (1977) gives particular attention to the demographic proCesses that create demand for new services. The slowing birth rate will lead to relatively modest increases in education and services to children (18% by 1990) whereas for the aged population the rate of in creased demand fOf services will be considerably higher (38%). While total labor force participation will remain virtually steady, the rates for women will continue to rise and for men continue to fall. Besides these large shifts related to age structure and sex roles, role differentiation in the society will continue to produce new specialized clienteles for social service. Viewing social policy from an individual rather than macro-social per spective, Hirschhorn (1977) calls attention to significant changes in the life cycle that are making it more fluid and unpredictable. Policy, he believes, should help people to make

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transitions out of difficulties that, if treated as

temporary, can be confined to a specific life cycle stage.

Mary Jo Bane (1976) makes a different use of demographic statistics to


weigh the relative gains and losses of potentially competing population groups: women and men, parents and children, the elderly and the young. Showing, for instance, that since 1960 the income situation of the old has improved at a faster rate than that of children, she suggests ways to reconcile such competing interests and achieve equity in the future. In addition to continued reliance on the American formula of individual rights and equal opportunity, she proposes more future effort to spread social insurance over the entire life cycle. All these works suggest a dynamic rather than static conception of demo graphic process and its significance for social policy. In the following review of family research on the aged, children, women, and others this dynamic perspective will have to give way to examination and description. However, we return to it at the end of this article as one of the possible methods of achieving future progress in the field.

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The Aged
The changing age structure of the population, which in industrial societies results in roughly 10% of the population being over 65, has also historically been associated with development of social insurance programs to provide income to the aged when they can no longer work or depend on kin for support. Harold Wilensky (1975) provides an incisive analysis of the correla tion between the inception of social security programs and the changing age structure of a population. Using techniques of regression analysis to compare countries' provision of social security to the elderly, he rules out political

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structure and level of economic development as primary determinants and shows instead that demographic change, namely, the aging of the popula tion, is the principal antecedent. The institution of social policies for the aged appears also indirectly re lated to changes in the family. Industrialization and urbanization during the 19th Century cut families off from sources of support that they could control (such as land that might be passed from parents to child, who in return would take care of them). These economic Changes, combined with the sur vival of more old people, thus made necessary a public rather than family based form of social insurance (M. Anderson 1977). The transition from one system to another was not immediate, however. In the United States Schorr (1968a) noted that the Old Age Assistance Plan had expected children to provide for their parents where possible. But a clear trend was then in mo tion to enlarge the notion of filial responsibility to a more universal concept so that a whole younger generation would support the old through their con tributions to the Social Security system. Thus social scientists arrived at some concept of how changes in the fam ily helped to create policies and programs for the aged. But it took further effort to perceive that these new systems did not simply act directly on individuals, but were filtered by the family in ways that could prove either destructive or advantageous to the old person. During the 1960s descriptive studies done both abroad and in the United States documented the unexpect edly large amount of interaction that old people had with their relatives even
if they did not live with them, and it became clear that the unfortunate ones

were those who had no family to tum to (Shanas et al 1968; Townsend 1957, 1968). It began to be better understood that the family was peculiarly adapted to give the care with tenderness that old people needed Anderson 1976; Shanas (1976) noted, the family comes about as close

(0. W. & Maddox 1976; Sussman 1976, 1977). As Diggs


as possible to "in

stitutionalized benevolence." Such insight raised a new concern: Did policy for the aged reinforce the benevolent capabilities of the family, or did it instead encourage families to

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disown and isolate their old? Townsend (1968) and Morris (1969) saw the need not just to replace but to supplement or complement the services of the family. Moroney (1976) saw the possibility that by withholding help from the elderly person who had family, the state might actually penalize families who gave help. Thus the family began to be conceived as a nexus for in terorganizational relationships between bureaucracies and the individual (Sussman 1976, 1977). It became clear that policies should structure incen tives to reinforce the family's involvement. Yet at the same time it was recognized that the pool of potential caretakers for the old is shrinking
as

more women go to work and geographical mobility increases (Moroney

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1976; Brody 1978). At the present time it is a continuing issue how the state can best provide for those who are dependent on it when aid from the family is not available.

Children
There seems to be no single, clear demographic process that preceded estab lishment of children's programs. Industrialization and immigration during the 19th Century brought concern with child labor and the role of schools in acculturation. Programs in the 1930s were instituted with fertility decline in the western European nations and a depression that in the United States gave rise to the program for Aid to Dependent Children. Finally, in the 1960s focus shifted to the "disadvantaged" child and to the relation between society and family. A review of federally sponsored projects for children (White et al 1973a) proposed that public policy for children "implement public purposes in child development through change in public institutions, or alternatively through support of the family' s care of

children" (emphasis added).


In the 1970s, the programs for children that received the most public attention and research involved child care or day care for young children. A number of comparative studies documented the child care arrangements that operate in Russia, China, the Israeli Kibbutz, and a variety of European countries (Bronfenbrenner 1970; Sidel 1972; Bettelheim 1969; Roby 1973). In the United States a vigorous debate over subsidized day care for the poor began after the establishment of Head Start but was virtually silenced by President Nixon's veto of the Comprehensive Child Care Act in 1971. Since then a number of studies have indicated that the great majority of families who need day care have informal arrangements in which a member of the family, neighbor, or nearby relative takes care of the child in the home for little or no fee (Schultze et al 1972; Woolsey 1977). Impact studies of families with various child care arrangements have just begun. The Working Family Project (1978) suggests that gains for the

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families who use informal arrangements are saving money and being able to entrust children to familiar persons rather than strangers. But parents who share child care are fatigued and have too little time together. illness or other emergency. Current policy development for children has now moved to a more com prehensive scale with proposals for universal health screenings and adequate income maintenance for families with children. Such suggestions had been put forward some years earlier in the Family Assistance Plan, the Mondale Committee, and the Talbot seminar (Moynihan 1973; US Senate 1973; Tal

If friends and

relatives are involved, the arrangements are vulnerable to breakdown due to

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bot 1976). The National Academy of Sciences (1976) report by a distin guished panel of social scientists reiterates these themes by a call for more extensive health care and screening services for children, neighborhood fam ily resource centers, better coordination of services, some system of adequate economic support, wider choice of child care programs, and spe cial services that either support family care or approximate it in out-of-the home settings. A report by the Carnegie Council on Children, also heavily influenced by social scientists, emerges with a similar list of necessary reforms (Keniston 1977). Two major themes predominate:

(a) the need to provide parents with (b)

jobs and a decent income including, if necessary, arrangements for parental leaves, parental allowances, flexible working hours, and part-time work; reorganization of services to families such as health care, child care, and legal services to achieve universal access, greater racial and economic inte gration, convenience, parent participation, and prevention of later problems. On one point, universal access, Gilbert Steiner (1976) states an important alternative view that the nation in providing such services should be primar ily concerned with the "unluckiest" children rather than try to spread limited resources to all children. Neither the National Academy of Sciences nor the Carnegie report studies impact so much as proposes new programs. It is therefore impossible to say what effects such programs might have. To date the most comprehensive examination of policy impact on children and families is to be found in a review sponsored by the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare that covers federally sponsored programs for young children in early elementary education, preschool projects, day care, family intervention, and health care (White et al 1973b). Although many of the results are based on incomplete or ambiguous data, they show positive results in children's short-term achievement as a result of early education, Head Start, and other child care programs. Provision of maternal and child health services also appears to lower infant mortality.

IMPACT OF SOCIAL POLICY ON THE FAMILY

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Women
With the resurgence of the women's movement in the 1960s scholars spent a brief period enthralled by the specter of universal patriarchy before settling into the more demanding intellectual task of documenting the social condi tions and poliCies under which sex equality waned or flourished. Much of the first research to examine policies promoting women's liberation was comparative. Youssef (1974) contrasted the high labor force participation rates of women from Latin America with the exceedingly low rates of women from the predominantly Muslim Middle East. Blake (1974) noted certain similarities in women's status across industrial societies: increasing education, declining fertility, rising labor force participation. Studies con trasting women's roles in socialist and nonsocialist countries demonstrated that policies in support of fertility control, child care, and women's employment could facilitate women's greater involvement in the public sphere (Fogarty et al 1971; Scott 1974; Giele & Smock 1977). From all these studies it was immediately apparent that any sex role de bate involves the family. Birgitta Linner (1972) of Sweden recounted what happened there: "The emphasis of the debate has moved even more from the emanCipation of women to the function of the family as a whole, and the place of the family within the society." This involved men's roles too; in Sweden it resulted in a list of goals that are gradually also becoming the focus of policy proposals in the United States: equal working conditions and benefits, educational assistance, laws permitting part-time work, day care for children, opportunity for parental leaves with pay, and universal access to abortion and contraception. In the United States, in addition to specific research on women's work, education, or political roles, a number of studies began to focus directly on social policy for women. Among the first, Jessie Bernard's Women and the Public Interest (1971) pointed to the problem of how women and men can share work and family responsibilities. Safilios-Rothschild (1974) cast pol icy questions in the form of how to liberate women and men from com pUlsive marriage, parenthood, and housekeeping. As time went on, policy proposals became more detailed. Bernard (1975) suggested expansion of insurance systems, part-time employment, and flexible hours as vehicles for allowing women to carry out both family and occupational roles. Alice Cook's (1975) survey of working women in nine countries netted a whole list of concrete social programs for child care, part-time work, and social insurance mechanisms. Siniilarly, though in much greater detail, Kamerman & Kahn's (1978) cross-national study of social services documented the variety of systems of child care, parental leaves, family allowances, and

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other programs that can help women bridge family and work. Kamerman

(1977) listed a variety of support services for working mothers that range
from social security benefits (maternity leave and child care) to employee wage contracts with family support measures, and programs for housing and youth. Among works treating impact of social policy on women and the family can be found studies that range from broad theoretical interpretations to de tailed analyses. In a wide-ranging synthesis Giele (1978) gives a conceptual framework showing links between proposed work and family policies and the goal of sex equality. By contrast, Ross and Sawhill (1975) focus more

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narrowly on the question of whether certain policies have encouraged the growth of female-headed families. They examine the impact of different benefit levels and welfare eligibility requirements on rates of transition into and out of the female-headed family situation. It now appears that further progress in the women's field will be made by more such detailed examinations of particular policies and their effects on women and families. Giele

& Kahne (1978) have reviewed proposals on two

policy issues in particular-working schedules, and credit for nonmarket work-to examine their effect on women's economic security in later life. CulTent research in progress on work schedules will show more clearly the effect of both total number of hours worked and type of schedule (flexible, part-time, full-time, swing shift, etc) on the quality of family life (pleck et al

1978). Detailed consideration of alternative schemes for crediting nonmarket


work, such as parental leaves and social security credit for household work, is just now getting under way (Gil 1973; Gordon 1978; US Department of Health, Education, and Welfare 1978). It is still too soon to report results showing actual impact.

Other Groups
In addition to aged, children, and women, many other special populations can be mentioned for whom the family may provide the best care or serve as the key factor in transition out of dependency. The needs of the mentally and physically handicapped are now receiving most attention. The process of deinsitutionalization raises the question of how community services can either supplement the family or provide an alternative. There is insufficient space here for more than a brief mention of the issue and the work of Moroney (1976) in trying to unravel the connec tions between availability of institutional and community care and the amount of family involvement. That the matter is of national concern is evident both in mention of the need for integration of special services in the National Academy of Sciences (1976) report and in the concern for how

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287

community services may best be mobilized for rehabilitation (President's Commission on Mental Health, 1978).

POLICIES TO SUPPORT FAMILY FUNCTIONS


Both the Family Impact Seminar (1978a,b) and Kamerman use "sectors" or "dimensions"

& Kahn (1978)

by which to classify types of social policy

relevant to the family, but neither does so with any particular theoretical rationale for the categories used. Both schemes do, however, imply that policies differ according to

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junction. Some focus on health, others on

economic support, still others on housing, and so on. The question arises whether the list of functions is arbitrary and continually subject to new addi tions, or is on the other hand capable of being conceived more abstractly and theoretically with a limited number of categories. Over the past several years I have tried to work with a four-fold classifica tion of social policies that support or supplement basic functions of all families, no matter what their particular structure (Giele, 1978). These func tions are nurturant, economic, residential, and cultural. Their performance will vary widely according to the class, region, ethnicity, age, and composi tion of a family. A variety of policies can be listed under each function, and some policies bear on several functions at once. Such a clear and simple list is useful not only as an ordering device but also as a theoretical tool. One can ask, is the nurturant or economic function being performed adequately? How is one function related to any other? How can performance be im proved? The underlying theoretical perspective from which these four functions derive is based on early small-group research and on more recent descrip tions of the family as a linkage mechanism (Parsons et al 1953; Sussman 1977). The four functions may be thought of as contributing to adaptation and survival because they link the family to four essential levels of social organization.

Nurturance is focused on sexual gratification, care, feeding,

and emotional support of the individual. The family is the primary unit in society for serving this function not only for children, but for the sick, the aged, and for healthy adult men and women. The

economic function links

the family group to the material resources that enable it to survive; it also governs the internal division of labor in the household and affects outside labor force participation of the members. The Finally, the

residential function locates the

family ecologically in social networks, housing, the community, and region.

legal and cultural function sets the group boundaries, defines the

group's identity, and symbolically structures all transactions to give them a particular meaning. Through legal and cultural definition of relationship, the

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family passes on tradition and material property. At the same time its partic ular culture becomes linked to differentiated subcultures (of class, region, ethnicity, religion, etc) and to the general beliefs and traditions of the larger society. Depending on one's ideological or theoretical position one can define any one of these functions as the primary goal of the family. Most of the schol arly works here represented appear to define nurturance and support of indi viduals as the primary goal of the family and imply that it is the one function by which the effectiveness of the family should ultimately be judged. From this perspective both the economic and residential functions represent means to an end, and the strategies learned over time are passed on through the family culture. But it should be recognized that from other perspectives the primary purpose of the family could be conceived as keeping people off the welfare rolls, producing labor and a consumer market for the economy, creating stable, crime-free communities, or preserving the nation's social and moral fabric. The following functional classification and review of policies is of neces sity highly selective. Many policies related to nurturance, particularly the care of children and the aged, have already been covered under the demo graphic classification of poliCies (and this is not surprising, since nurturance is particularly related to the care of individuals). A number of policies re lated to economic functions concern women (and this also is to be expected, since sex roles primarily affect the internal division of labor in the household and the labor force participation rates of men and women). The principal task left to this section is to delineate for each of the four major functions the range of current policies proposed and the degree to which family participation is recognized as a necessary ingredient in policy implementation. Questions of how to evaluate such programs and policies for their impact on the family will be deferred to the concluding secti0n on methodology.

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Nurturance
Related to the nurturant function of the family are a wide variety of pro grams and policies that support the care of individuals. They range from nutritional programs, family planning, child care, and home services to gen eral programs on behalf of better physical and emotional health for fertility and family planning; sons. There is space to review here only three types of nurturant policies:

all per (a)

(b) health care; and, (c) supports to mental

health. In each area there appears to be increasing recognition that the family must be involved if program goals are to be realized, but this theme is not yet strong in the literature. Ironic though it sounds, little of the policy-related research on family

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planning actually considers the family as a system whose support is neces sary if fertility control is to be successful. Instead, programs to widen access to contraception are aimed at the individual (Kamerman & Kahn 1976), and the route to improvement is seen as wider access and more aggressive out reach. Recently into this picture has been introduced research on family related factors that influence desire to limit fertility. One variable may be the relative value placed on nonfamilial roles as compared with familial roles (Davis 1975). Another variable comprises the traditional or modem sex role expectations of women and men (Davis 1975; Blake 1975; Scanzoni 1975). In the case of teenage mothers, a practical strategy is to increase the ease of moving back and forth between school and family responsibilities: Fursten berg (1976) finds that teenage mothers may receive useful short-term and specialized help, but not the long-term and integrated services that they also need if their life chances are not to be greatly impaired by an early preg nancy. In the realm of policies for health care delivery, the discovery of impor tant family variables is new and relatively undeveloped. Probably indicative of major currents in the field is Mechanic's (1975) recent review of compara tive research on health care delivery systems; it does not mention the family at all. Since then, the World Health Organization (1976) has published an excellent bibliography and review of family health indexes and their demo graphic, epidemiological, social, and economic correlates. However, the references cited and the different methodological approaches described still deal overwhelmingly with the etiology of fa inily health rather than with the policy implications of these findings. Only as emphasis on prevention and "demedicalization" gain more attention does it seem likely that attention to the family as a partner in health maintenance will grow. Such a shift de pends on destratification of the doctor-patient relationship and more em phasis on the importance of normal daily routines such as sufficient sleep, well-balanced meals, and moderate exercise-variables that are much more under the control of the individual and family than the doctor (Fox 1977). Sehnert (1977) describes a recent experiment with the effects of a course for "activated" patients to help them take better care of themselves and their families. Results show a more appropriate and less costly use of medical services and improvement in lifestyle (diet) among the experimental group. In the realm of mental health a similar situation exists. There is ample research on the contribution of family structure and dynamics to mental ill ness and on the potentialities of family therapy as a mode of treatment (May, 1974), but there is an amazing lack of emphasis on policies and programs to give positive support to the family in achievement of mental health. In the report of the President's Commission on Mental Health (1978) the major recommendations touching the family concern prenatal care, health screen-

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ing services to infants, child care, courses on marriage and parenting, and other measures that are oriented primarily toward the early end of the life span. The report does recognize that developmental life crises in adults (vet erans, persons in stress situations, seasonal workers) should also be studied. One major strategy is suggested: promoting the development of helping net works and mutual support groups that deal preventively with crises. This strategy undoubtedly owes much to the community mental health movement and the work of Gerald Caplan (1974) in preventive psychiatry. But routine involvement of the family with such possible support systems has yet to become familiar and widespread. As Eisenberg (1977) has said, the medical

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care system today has had thrust upon it a range of needs once supplied by the extended family, the church, and the school, to which it cannot adequately and appropriately respond. Research on the impact of health policies involving the family as an active partner seems long overdue.

Economic Activity
The family's economic well-being depends on the interaction of a number of variables: family composition, employment of the members, and income from public and private transfers such
3S

Social Security, pensions, medical

benefits, etc. One way to examine the impact of welfare, tax, or employ ment policies on the family is to measure their effects on family structure, labor force participation of members, and total family income. Over the past decade, spurred by the War on Poverty, the volume of research examining family economic status has skyrocketed. Here it is possible only to provide a rough guide to key themes and related references in the context of family policy. Policies for affecting family income have themselves changed since the 1960s. The War on Poverty according to Haveman (1977) relied first and foremost on an employment strategy; but at the same time it resulted in important new health programs and housing for the poor, as well as a dra matic increase in use of food stamps. A tremendous increase also occurred in existing categorical programs such as AFDC and Aid to the Aged, Blind, and Disabled. It is still a matter of debate how much decrease in poverty occurred as a result; one calculation estimates that the numberof households in poverty was reduced from 13% in 1964 to less than 5% in 1975 (Have man 1977). Over the course of this period, the emphasis of both policy and research began to shift. As income poverty decreased, the inequality of income dis tribution remained and in fact became more pronounced because of such differential factors as whether a family had two incomes or many dependents to support. Gradually the concept of giving direct help to a category labeled "poor" began to give way to a more universal notion of lessening the gap between low income and high income families through demogrants to indi-

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viduals to meet their basic needs or negative income tax schemes. Such strategies would presumably increase incomes at the low end of the spectrum by providing benefits in such a way as to meet basic needs while encourag ing work and avoiding incentives for the family to split (Lampman 1976). Thus current research related to impact of economic policies on the family has three major branches, one oriented toward design and testing of various income maintenance schemes, another toward labor force participation of family members, and a third toward f amily composition as both independent and dependent variables in the economic well-being of the family. For this development to occur, however, several advances in thought were neces sary. It had to be understood that, to paraphrase Carolyn Shaw Bell (1975), every job did not have to support a family, that a family's income could be made up from a number of sources including employment of several family members (Oppenheimer, 1977), and that family composition itself was one of the most critical factors in promoting economic well-being (Duncan & Morgan 1976). To test income maintenance schemes, the Institute for Research on Pov erty and other contractors conducted experiments with government support. The results of the New Jersey Income Maintenance Experiment are the most famous. They show that in the experimental families who received income supplements, male family heads reduced their hours worked by only 6% and wives reduced theirs by 30% (US Department of Health, Education and Welfare 1973). Generally this finding has been interpreted positively as showing little negative effect of benefits on work incentives (Lampman 1976). Valuable longitudinal data on labor force participation come from two principal sources. The National Longitudinal Surveys begun in 1967 have helped to show the importance of retirement poliCies, health, and income factors in the participation of older men. Other studies based on the NLS data have examined how women's employment relates to child care ar rangements, education, fertility expectations and wage rates (Bielby et al 1978). Longitudinal data from the Five Thousand Family study at the Uni versity of Michigan have shown that transfer income has a negative impact on labor force participation rates. In addition the Michigan study gives in sight into the institutional factors relating to working hours that may contrib ute to moonlighting, quitting, and family and job relocation (Duncan & Morgan 1977). Such effects of working hour constraints, not only on employment but the quality of family life, are of increasing interest to a wide variety of researchers (Kanter 1977; Keniston 1977; Pleck et alI978). Perhaps most difficult to summarize is the research on family composi tion. Much attention has been given to the impact of welfare benefits on family splitting (Lerman 1973; Honig 1973). In their detailed examination of the growth of female-headed families, Ross & Sawhill (1975) concluded that

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higher benefits did not contribute to family splitting so much as to maintain ing female heads in a single state by inhibiting or delaying remarriage . Dun can & Morgan (1976) found that there was a higher divorce rate in states with higher AFDC benefits but that the remarriage rate did not seem to have been affected . A useful guide through this maze is now available in a report by Bradbury et al (1977). They conclude that , because of methodological flaws in the available research , there is only weak evidence that AFDC levels affect either separation or remarri age rates .

Residence
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With the War on Poverty and efforts to stimulate the economy there has been tremendous ferment in the housing field also . Housing programs there fore offer a natural focus for examining the effects of residential policies on family life . However, the residential variable reaches beyond housing. As Phyllis Wallace (1977) has said, "Housing is no longer viewed as a single, good shelter, but as a mix of neighborhood amenities -good schools , clean streets , adequate recreational facilities , access to a better life . " By this broad conception , residential policies include not only housing, but school desegregation , the energy crisis , highway construction that disrupts neigh borhoods , and the building of new towns and regional centers. In the research on impact of such policies, three interrelated themes stand out as relevant to the family: between environmental changes and internal dynamics of the family; and behalf of family well-being. It appears that the housing policies of the last decade have in some ways exacerbated racial and economic segregation . Both Downs (1974, 1977) and Wallace (1977) note that middle class people benefitted more than poor families from increased housing production and tax benefits for home own ership . But the poor, although they could take up some vacancies in old and new units , were trapped in deteriorating central cities where crime and van dalism flourished . Housing subsidies , housing production , and tax policies all had the effect of raising the general housing standard , but the greatest advances were in the suburbs while the poor improved their lot primarily by taking what was left behind. Downs (1977) terms the phenomenon a "trickle-down process. " It is still a speculative venture to draw connections between recent changes in metropolitan areas and the internal dynamics of family life. Downs (1977) presents the interesting suggestion that
as

(a) race and class segregation; (b) connections (c)

the need to safeguard social networks, neighborhoods , and regional ties on

families moved to

larger spaces , thereby relieving crowding and increasing privacy, they at the same time were probably " contributing to a general decline in the solidarity and importance of family ties in our society . " Some partial confirmation of this theme comes from other studies . The Five Thousand Family study in

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examining families ' moves over a five-year period found that 70% of the moves were to improve housing and relieve crowding (Morgan 1974). In a study of the impact of the energy crisis on families , Perlman

& Warren

( 1 977) reported that nearly half of the people they interviewed cut back on visiting friends and relatives during the fuel shortage, although a small per centage saw friends and relatives more often. These figures could be inter preted as a commentary on the typical distance between relatives which has perhaps increased in the last several decades with creation of the suburbs and more widespread use of the automobile. The interaction of migration and internal family processes ultimately af

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fects the community and determines whether families want to stay or leave . The trickle-down process has been destructive for poor families and their communities to the extent that it concentrated troubled families in poor neighborhoods (Downs 1 977) . How can such destructive processes be avoided in the future and how can positive community attributes be safeguarded and enhanced? Certain of the new English towns provide positive examples (White 1976) . In the United States the work of Carol Stack and her associates at Duke University is making clear the positive contributions of existing social networks, land use patterns , and neighborhood tradition to the quality of family life (Stack 1 974; Friedman 1978) . The challenge now is to inject these insights into the design of future poliCies on residential and regional development.

Legal and Cultural Identity


A legal and cultural rubric for classification of family policies is still new , relatively untried , and its content therefore not well defined . Kamerman Neither

& Kahn ( 1978) nor the Family Impact Seminar ( 1 978a,b) have a

distinct category for policies affecting the legal and cultural identity of the family. However, because I have been working with a theoretical framework that made me look for a function that maintains the boundaries and culture of the group , I have identified it as a necessary additional category . To make a rough beginning , I have grouped the relevant research under two separate topics , one dealing with family law , the other with family culture . Glendon ( 1 976) has formulated one of the most powerful theories for in terpreting general changes in family law . Through historical and compara tive legal research she identifies a trend in Western European countries as well as the United States toward the delegalization ( ' 'dejuridification' ') of marriage . Increasingly the law appears to look on marriage as a matter of individual choice, not to be hampered by excessive preliminary formalities nor to be dissolved with undue difficulty . Such change in the state 's posture toward marriage allows greater rein to individual choice and feeling and assumes greater autonomy of dependent family members such as women and children.

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Many works on the changing status of children and women support this thesis . Rodham ( 1973) finds current law reforms moving to change chil dren 's status in two ways: by extending more adult rights to children and by recognizing certain unique needs and interests of children as legally enforce able rights . Texts on women and the law document similar trends (e.g. Bab cock et al 1 975) . However, in the case of both women and children, their new theoretical rights to more autonomous status do not necessarily accord with what may be their actual dependent status . Increasingly it devolves upon the state to protect their interests. For example, after separation or divorce, the low rate of child support payments from absent fathers suggests

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that clearer standards must be set concerning the amount of support that can reasonably be expected. In addition more effective enforcement and collec tion procedures are needed that are perhaps tied to the income tax or Social Security system (Gates 1977; Jones et al 1 976). Impact studies clearly reveal that changes in the law can have an impor tant effect on family life. Jones et al ( 1976) found that in states with close followup of child-support orders there was a much better record of payment collection. Stetson & Wright ( 1 975) observed a higher rate of divorce in those states with liberal divorce laws. Sklar & Berkov reported a dramatic decline in births after abortion was made legal in California. With respect to the family's cultural identity, it is perhaps too early to expect impact studies. In fact in all the family policy literature it is difficult to find any reference to the possible effects of specifically cultural policies on the family; and in the literature on ethnicity there is frequently no sys tematic attention given to the family. Yet when one reflects on the upsurge of interest in black, Hispanic , and Native American culture , language pat terns, and family forms , it makes sense to expect such studies in the future (Yancey et al 1 976). Kobrin & Goldscheider ( 1 978) , for example , note dif ferences in upward mobility and intermarriage among ethnic and religious groups in Rhode Island. Hereafter a particularly promising approach may be analysis of ethnic value orientations to understand the ease or difficulty with which specific families and individuals become acculturated (Papajohn & Spiegel 1975).

METHODOLOGICAL ISSUES
In the foregoing review, impact of social policy on the family has been

described systematically in terms of the independent variable: type of policy. Now we turn to the dependent variable, the effects that are being observed, and consider the various indicators that can be used as measures. Fortunately the recent development of social indicators provides the fam ily policy field with a philosophical basis and a growing literature to help it

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in constructing outcome measures. Goode ( 1968) early noted three levels of social complexity at which the family 'S operation could be observed: (a) individual; (b) relational (dyads and triads such as parent-child, etc); and (c) global (the family or kin group as a whole). The relational focus has not developed as far as the others (however, see Matessich 1976 for a taxonomy of impact at this level) . Most measurements of policy impact on the family are of the individual or global type. A possible source of confusion, however, is the fact that many attributes can be measured at both an individual and a group level. For example, employment may be considered as a characteristic of the individual who is working or unemployed, or it may be defined as the status of a head of household, in which case it becomes a rough measure of the family's economic well-being (Watts & Skidmore 1978b). Current issues in family impact analysis thus center around three principal questions: how to measure impact at the individual level; how to measure impact at the group level; and how to select appropriate conceptual models that adequately portray the linkages between individual, family, and the social poliCies of the larger society.

Impact on the Individual


A key question to ask of social policies for vulnerable groups is whether outside intervention actually benefits individuals who are to be helped. What domains of individual satisfaction or well-being should be measured? In The Quality o American Lif Campbell et al (1976) develop an index f e of individual well-being by combining items representing general satisfac tion with life. In addition they inquire about experience with work, marriage and family life, the residential environment, and feelings about the country in general. Their findings are particularly relevant to measurement of policy impact on the family for two reasons: First, they show how degree of satisfaction varies with personal attributes such as age, sex , race, or education, and family attributes such as marital or parental status. Second, several of their findings, especially those showing high stress in college-educated house wives and parents of young children, are relevant for development of future programs and policies such as subsidized child care.

Impact on the Family Group


A number of other investigations have attempted to conceptualize and mea sure the quality of family life. Over the past decade several landmark pub lications have listed important dimensions of family life that should be measured not only across groups but across time. Goode ( 1 968) early listed

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a number of data needs: time and money budgets, variations in family patterns, functioning of kin networks, socialization practices, etc. Ferriss

( 1970), using aggregate data drawn largely from the census and other gov ernment sources, presented indicators of change in the American family
since 1940. The major dimensions he observed were marital status , family and household composition, fertility, and work and income. In the Five Thousand Family study, Morgan et al ( 1 974) also grappled with how to measure economic well-being and family change. In addition to family in come they examined such global measures as family composition, labor force participation, and educational attainment. Social Indicators 1976, a recent US Department of Commerce ( 1 977) publication, also includes a number of measures that bear on family well-being-e.g. family size and composition, living arrangements and housing, health conditions and educa tional enrollment by family income, and characteristics of families below the poverty level. What seems particularly noteworthy in these efforts is a gradual con vergence on a few major dimensions that describe the internal functioning of the family and its linkages to larger social systems . Several investigators have now begun to codify the principal types of indicators that should be used (Stolte-Heiskanen 1974; Land 1975; Rice 1977; Perlman 1978). The major indicators can be grouped in a way that corresponds with the four major family functions identified earlier: (a) quality of life with respect to nurturance and socialization (health, education, care-taking of vulnerable members); (b) level of economic performance (labor force participation , di vision of labor in the home, income from all sources); (c) quality of housing

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and residential location (access to community resources, migration); and (d) characteristics of f amily composition (extendedness, size, change through
marriage, divorce , etc). Finally , a fifth category, (e) degree and quality of

f amily participation in other social systems (religious and political involve


ment, alienation, and ethnic and class integration) describes links to the larger social order. That such a list can be constructed suggests that there is growing consensus on the measures appropriate to family well-being.

Conceptual Models
While consensus on the significant types of impacts has developed, there is no clear conception of the dynamics by which well-being is attained . On one theme, however, there is considerable agreement: The family operates as a mediating system between the individual and the larger society (Stolte-Heiskanen 1974; Sussman 1976, 1 977; Keniston 1977). Thus one way to classify dynamic models of policy-family interaction is according to different levels of social organization. First are theories that describe the internal dynamics o the f ily system. f am

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Here , for example, studies of family economic well-being provide a model for analyzing the" ways in which other family characteristics (family compo sition , attitudes, location , labor force participation) are related to a particular outcome (Morgan et al 1974; Duncan A second type of theory describes the

& Morgan 1977). interchange between f amilies and

individuals. In the past, socialization and therapy models of interaction have predominated (Parsons & Bales 1955; Ackerman 1958). Now these models , supplemented by others, should be reviewed and revised for purposes of
policy analysis. A third type of theory conceptualizes the dynamic relation between f amilies and the larger society. Theories of ethnic adaptation (Papajohn & Spiegel 1975) and models of social network formation (Bott 197 1 ; Stack 1974) suggest how families ' ties with others can supplement and strengthen group resources. The role of such extra-familial supports must be incorpo rated in any comprehensive picture of policy impact on the family. In the final analysis, of course , one would like to have theoretical formu lations and empirical examples that connect all three levels of social organization -the individual , the family, and the larger society. At the mo ment the premier example of such an attempt is the work of Glen Elder

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( 1 974, 1 977), who in a historical study of the impact of the Depression on


children showed how the family experience of economic deprivation truly acted as a mediating force in shaping children's later careers. While there is much to be learned from such historical studies (Boocock 1978), the matter of how to accomplish a similar integration with contemporary data on social policies and the family is a task still largely before us.

CONCLUSION
The field of family impact analysis is still so new that to report only research on the

impact without an extended definition of both relevant social policies and family is premature. Over the past decade a growing awareness that what policies and what effects. Gradually

social policies were having important effects on the family had to be par ticularized so that we could say some consensus has emerged that policies affecting certain key groups children, women, the elderly, and the handicapped-should take the family into account. Policies that touch certain key family functions -nurturance , economic support, residence, and cultural identity-should also be exam ined for their effects on the family. But how to measure these effects? Studies that examine the impact of policies on the family reveal certain pervasive concerns: family splitting, women's labor force participation , fertility , racial and economic segregation, poverty . On closer examination some of these effects are best studied at the

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individual level, others at the family unit level. Satisfaction, employment, and family membership have been suggested by some as measures that best characterize the individual, whereas family income, family composition , socialization, and residence are appropriately observed at the family level. Faced with the voluminous research documenting the range of relevant policies and impacts , the family policy field must begin to codify several alternative theories of family process. At the moment there are broad maps of relevant policies on the one hand and highly specific formulas for measur ing narrow policy impacts on the other. But the field now awaits some dynamic models of policy-family interaction to organize it at its core.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am grateful to the National Science Foundation, especially Gladys Handy


and Kenneth Gayer, for support (Grant GI-43792) during 1974-75 to under take preliminary review of family policy development in the United States. Since that time my colleagues at the Heller School and students in the course on " Family Life and Social Policies" have advanced my thinking enorm ously. I particularly wish to thank Robert B . Hudson for directing me to the relevant materials in aging , and Robert Perlman and Kenneth A. Lorenz for alerting me to alternative models of family process.
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Garfinkel, I . , Middleton, R. , Skidmore, F . , Sweet, J . , Walster, E. 1977. The E ects o ff f Welfare Re orm Alternatives on the Family. f Rep. US Dept. Health, Educ. & Welfare. Madison, Wis: Univ. Wisconsin Inst. Res. on Poverty, Spec. Rep. Ser. 80 pp. Brody , E. M. 1978. The Aging of the Fam ily. Ann. Am. Acad. Polito Soc. Sci. 438:
1 3-27 Bronfenbrenner, U. 1970. Two Worlds o f Childhood: U.S. and U.S.S.R. NY: Russell Sage. 190 pp. Campbell, A . , Converse, P. E . , Rodgers, W. L. 1 976. The Quality o American f Lif Perceptions, Evaluations, and Satis e: f actions, pp. 42, 49. NY: Russell Sage.

267 pp. Cook. A. H. 1975. The Working Mother: A Survey o Problems and Programs in Nine f Countries. Ithaca, NY: New York St. Sch. Ind. Labor Relations, Cornell Univ. 71 pp. Davis. K. 1975. PopUlation policy: will cur rent programs succeed? (See Blake 1975, pp. 27-36.) Diggs, B. J. 1 976. The ethics of providing for the economic well-being of the aged. See O. W. Anderson 1 976, pp. 55-64 Downs. A. 1974. The successes and failures of federal housing policy. Publ. Interest Downs, A. 1977. The impact of housing policies on family life in the United States since World War II . Daedalus 106 (2): Duncan. G. J Morgan . J. N. 1 976. Intro duction, overview, summary, and conclu sions. In Five Thousand American Families-Patterns o Economic Progress, f Vol. 4. ed. G. J. Duncan, J. N. Morgan, pp. 1-22. Ann Arbor. Mich: Univ. Michi gan Inst. Soc. Res. 527 pp. Duncan. G. J. , Morgan, J. N . , eds. 1977. Five Thousand American Families Patterns o Economic Progress. Vol. 5, f pp. 18-20, 3 14-15. Ann Arbor, Mich: Univ. Michigan Inst. Soc. Res. 526 pp. Eisenberg, L. 1977. The search for care. Daedalus 106 ( 1 ):235-46 Elder, G. H. Jr. 1974. Children o the Great f Depression: Social Change in Lif Ex e perience. Chicago: Univ. Chicago Press. 400 pp. Elder, G. H. Jr 1977. Family history and the life course. J. Fam. Hist. 2 (4):279-304 Family Impact Seminar. 1 978a. Toward an Inventory o Federal Programs with Direct f Impact on Families. Washington DC:
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