Policy Hub
On 21 April 2009, the think tank Policy Exchange published a report (Families in Britain: the impact of changing family structures and what the public thinks) which suggests that ‘the family’, both in public opinion and as a policy area, is a source of persistent contradictions and trade-offs.
In Britain today, the report notes that both public and politicians agree that families matter. Four out of five people say that ‘my family are more important to me than my friends’, and families currently ride high on the policy agendas of both the Labour and Conservative parties.
The report finds that 64% of those surveyed strongly agree that parents need to take more responsibility for their children. Privately, families must balance the competing interests of parents and children with other dependants such as elderly relatives.
The report contends that the role of the single male breadwinner is declining. This, along with the growth of single-parent families and other new kinds of family, presents many new challenges for government policy on such subjects as welfare and work-life balance.
The report considers the impact of these changes and sets out the public’s views as a starting point for a debate on policy, charting the changing nature of the family, and what these changes mean for parents, children and society.
Families in Britain: the impact of changing family structures and what the public thinks (PDF)