ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an ecological framework and assesses how political systems influence parenting and children’s outcomes. It highlights broad policy issues that enhance or undermine parenting ability through improving the immediate social contexts of families and the more distal contexts that influence families but in which children and their parents do not interact directly. The chapter explores the lack of paid parental leave in the United States and the efficacy of home visitation programs, and within the exosystems and discusses welfare and antipoverty programs, the role of neighborhoods on child development, and the economic and social costs of childrearing. It focuses on general topics broken into direct and indirect influences, how well public policies address the needs of the family, and how research on this area can improve current policies. The chapter draws on the impact of family planning policies and focuses on what happens in the prenatal and immediate postpartum social environment.
