ABSTRACT
What is family policy? In this chapter, we look at efforts to define family policy in terms of its aims and effects. Our approach involves identifying the main activities we associate with families, and considering how and why society takes in interest in these activities. We consider the different approaches that can be taken to analysing policy, and note the importance of social policy focusing on needs, problems and rights. Different perspectives on family policy are identified through the on-going debate about ‘family values’. We contrast libertarian and interventionist values, although conflicts over the role of the state in family policy (that is, over ‘means’) are overbid by differences in the ends — traditionalist, egalitarian and pragmatist — that the various protagonists pursue.
