ABSTRACT
With growing poverty and inequality in British society, how resources are transferred between and within families has become an important issue for family policy. In this chapter we discuss both vertical distribution (from well-off to poor families) and horizontal distribution (between families in different circumstances). Like its predecessors, the Labour government is increasingly inclined to define family policies in terms of vertical distribution — to target resources on those families most in need’. In contrast, the rights-based agenda which informs universal benefits such as Child Benefit has been marginalized. The problem of reducing dependency by increasing work incentives has also loomed large, obscuring issues concerned with the needs of families for an adequate standard of living. Issues of poverty raise questions about how resources are transferred within families, including women's rights to independent income. The shift from a rights-based approach to concerns with responsibility is nowhere more evident than in the introduction of the Child Support Act, which provides a text-book example of the difficulties of translating simple principles into effective practice.
