Family Policy for the New Millenium
by Kevin Andrews
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Over the past few decades, national material prosperity, both in this nation and elsewhere in the industrialised world, has improved. Gross Domestic Product has risen to record levels. The health of many nations has improved, as measured by infant mortality and longevity and money spent on education has grown. ChildrenÕs rights have been the focus of renewed attention and the ratio of children to parents has decreased. But few people would dispute that the life of our children is more uncertain today than at any stage since the Second World War. To take a few measures:

¥ Youth suicide has increased to tragic levels;

¥ Tens of thousands of young people are estimated to be homeless;

¥ Reports of child abuse rise each year;

¥ Alcohol and drug abuse amongst teenagers has increased markedly, and;

¥ Hundreds of thousands of children are growing up with single parents. While the causes of these problems are complex, a common factor is the breakdown of marriages and the disintegration of family structures. Take two recent examples:

¥ The final report of the Prime Ministerial Taskforce on Youth Homelessness, Putting Families in the Picture, found that the majority of young people and families identified conflict in their relationship as the main reason for imminent or early home leaving by young people;

¥ The recent draft National Action Plan for Suicide Prevention stated in part: ÔYoung people with suicidal behaviours are less likely to be living with their biological parents and more likely to be from separated, divorced or single parent families, or from families where there are interpersonal conflicts. A family history of mental illness, violence or assault, imprisonment, antisocial behaviour, or harmful drug use is associated with suicide, as is childhood physical and sexual abuse and recent breakdown of marriage. Strong connections to family or responsibility for children appear to provide some protection from suicide.Õ

While these and other reports attest to a recurring association between a range of social pathologies and marriage and family breakdown, little attention has been given to the issue until recently.

The evidence, however, is mounting. In To have and to hold, the Parliamentary report on strategies to strengthen marriage and relationships, the committee surveyed the research about the impact of marriage, separation and divorce on health of individuals and on children, both at the time of their parentsÕ divorce and in subsequent adulthood.

A considerable body of research evidence indicates that adults and children are at increased risk of mental and physical problems due to marital distress. There is both conclusive evidence to show that marriage is a Ôhealthy environmentÕ associated with lower mortality and morbidity and strong evidence that the process of divorce leaves men, women and children vulnerable to ill-health.

In a recent review of the literature, Professor Linda Waite (1997), the University of Chicago professor of sociology and a past president of the American Population Association, observed:

In a variety of ways and along a number of dimensions, married men and women lead healthier lives than the unmarried. This includes more drinking, substance abuse, drinking and driving and generally living dangerously among single men . . . The married lead more ordered lives, with healthier eating and sleeping habits. Marriage improves both menÕs and womenÕs psychological well-being. Perhaps, as a result, married men and women generally live longer than single men and women.

While it seems that there are some gender differences in the outcomes for men and women, recent studies appear to counter earlier suggestions that marriage is good for men and bad for women. These conclusions are not confined to the United States or Britain. Professor Denis Ladbrook (1997) notes that the conclusions drawn from overseas data are broadly replicable in Australia.

The findings also relate to children. A large number of studies have shown that divorce has both a short term and a long term impact on children. It also demonstrates that this impact often extends into adult life with consequences for health, family life, educational performance and occupational status. More than ten years ago, Professor Norval Glenn (1987), then editor of the Journal of Family Issues, wrote that the views of leading family scholars were beginning to shift from what he described as Ôcontinuity-sanguinenessÕ about the condition of the family to Ôchange-concern.Õ He indicated that the scholars were becoming less likely to view current family trends as a process of gradual and even beneficial adaptation, and increasingly likely to view them as new and socially harmful. A decade later he confirmed the outlook: ÔNot all family social scientists participated in this shift, but it is significant that the most prominent scholars and those most directly involved in the relevant research were most likely to do so.Õ

An example of the shift is the work of Professor Paul Amato. In 1987, while a fellow at the Australian Institute of Family Studies, Amato had written in Children in Australian Families: The Growth of Competence that harmful stereotypes such as Ôstaying together for the sake of the childrenÕ prevented us from seeing families as they really are. His latest research, published as A Generation at Risk (1997), found that only one quarter to a third of divorces end up being better for the children than if the parents had stayed together. By contrast, about 70 per cent of divorces end low-conflict marriages, which would have been better for the children to have continued than ending.

Liberal and conservative scholars alike increasingly remark on the consequences of a devaluing of marriage on the well-being of children. The renowned scholar of family studies, Urie Bronfenbrenner (1994), has commented: ÔThere has been a progressive disarray at an accelerating rate of the disorganisation of the family in the western world.Õ Australians can take little heart from international comparisons. United Nations demographic surveys indicate the trend of child poverty, family fragmentation, divorce, out of wedlock births, and teenage deaths is accelerating. As Bronfenbrenner asserts Ôamongst post-industrial societies, families, children, adolescents, and youth are at the greatest risk in English-speaking countries.Õ Australia is no exception.

Despite claims from time to time that family structure is irrelevant to positive outcomes for children, the research evidence is mounting. The veteran New York Democratic Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (1989) has observed, historically poverty derived from unemployment and low wages; today it derives from family structure. The academic Council on Families in America concluded in a report to the nation in 1995 that the mounting evidence Ôpoints to one striking conclusion: the weakening of marriage has had devastating consequences for the well-being of children.Õ The Council did not claim that the weakening of marriage was the only factor contributing to the decline of child well-being, but said it was by far the most important causal factor. Obviously unemployment and other economic factors also contribute to the general uncertainty facing many young people.

Instead of only treating the symptoms of marriage and family breakdown such as homelessness, we need to view these issues, at least partially, as manifestations of relationship dysfunction. Otherwise, we will fail to address part of the cause of growing societal problems.

Family policy

Family policy should be founded on two principles which recognise and support the existence of the key mediation or bridging structures in society such as family and voluntary associations. These principles are:

1. Public policy should protect and foster family; and

2. Wherever possible, public policy should utilise the family as its agent.

These two principles establish a minimum and maximum position. In some policy areas, government should leave families alone, or at least adopt a neutral position towards them. In others, it should utilise the family itself or other mediating structures to deliver programmes of assistance. Within this framework, I suggest a five-fold approach to the development of a comprehensive national family policy:

1. The adoption of a national family policy;

2. The recognition of societyÕs preference for families;

3. The strengthening of marriage and the relationships between parents and children;

4. The building of community support for families; and

5. The fostering of a moral culture for families and children.

This paper examines some aspects of family policy. In doing so, I am aware that there are other important areas, such as the balance of work and family, and care of children, that this paper does not address.

Supporting families

Taxation policy

Following the defeat of the Coalition at the 1993 general election, a group of members and senators engaged in a two year discussion of the appropriate way to recognise families in the taxation and benefits system. Cognisant of the work by Alan Tapper and others that indicated no net assistance to families with children and a massive intergenerational subsidy to those people who raised their families in the 1950s and 60s, our purpose was to establish the principle that the raising of children demands recognition in the taxation system.

A major Discussion Paper considered five options for reforms of the taxation/payments system for families: income splitting, increasing family payments, income averaging, a flat tax, and raising the tax-free threshold for families with children. Our preferred option was to double the income threshold for families with children. This approach has a number of advantages. It achieves more horizontal equity for families. It is easily understood; the greatest benefits would be felt by low income families and those on average weekly earnings; it is not a welfare measure; and the benefit can be obtained immediately by PAYE taxpayers through a reduction in weekly tax.

Although arguments have been advanced from time to time for a direct payment to parents, there are difficulties with a method which fixes the government treatment of families in the welfare system. Once the treatment becomes a payment by the government, it is seen as a benefit from government, rather than recognition of the direct costs of raising children and what families contribute to the nation. It also tends to lose its value over time. The history of child endowment is illustrative of this tendency.

The CoalitionÕs subsequent Family Tax Initiative increased the tax free threshold by $1000 for each dependent child up to the age of 16 and each dependent secondary student up to 18 years. In addition, single income families including sole parents receive a further $2,500 increase in their tax free threshold if they have a child under five. For a single income family of three children, one of whom is under five years, the tax free threshold is almost doubled.

The taxation reform package passed by the Parliament in 1999 builds on these initiatives. Apart from reductions in personal income taxes, and the increase and simplification of family benefits, the tax free threshold increases under the Family Tax Initiative will be doubled. From July 1, 2000, all single income families, including sole parents, with one child under 5 years will have an effective tax free threshold of $13,000, more than double the new general threshold.

This is a far-reaching recognition of families in the taxation system. It is an important recognition that two economies exist within the nation: the market economy, where exchanges take place through money and where competition and efficiency drive decisions; and the home economy, where exchanges take place through the altruistic sharing of goods and services among family members. As Allan Carlson and David Blankenhorn (1998) wrote recently:

It is precisely the home economyøacts of unpaid production ranging from parental childcare and nursing of the sick and the elderly to gardening, home carpentry, and food preparationøthat is the organising principle of family life and the basis of civil society.

Every marriage creates a new home economy. These little economies are largely undetected in our measurement of the gross national product, just as they are usually beyond the reach of tax collectors. But they are vitally important. If they thrive, the well-being of children and society as a whole improves.

Strengthening marriage

Marriage education

The report of the House of Representatives Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee, To have and to hold, called for a national strategy to strengthen marriages and relationships. The Federal Government subsequently accepted this proposal for an enhanced program of prevention and education, committing an additional $6 million to relationship education services, $10.5 million for men and family relationships, and an extra $16 million for counselling, mediation and dispute resolution services. In June 1999, Prime Minister Howard announced the development of a National Families Strategy in response to the CommitteeÕs report.

The central theme of the report involves the recommendation that the CommonwealthÕs Family Relationships Services Program, which funds some 46 community and church agencies, should clearly recognise the role of preventative education, as distinct from programmes of therapy, counselling and mediation.

Research into the effectiveness of marriage education suggests that these programs enable couples to discuss strengths and areas for work in their relationships, obtain useful information, and learn new skills, particularly about communicating and resolving conflict. Our objective should be the encouragement for all couples contemplating cohabitation or marriage to participate in marriage and relationship education.

Divorce law

Australia, like many other nations, changed its divorce laws in the 1970s to remove the legal concept of fault and to replace it with a notion of the irretrievable breakdown of the marriage, as evidenced by 12 months separation of the parties. Like other nations, we have experienced higher levels of divorce in the past two decades.

The Family Law Act was constructed on two fundamental principles: first, the importance of family, and, secondly, the rights and obligations of spouses both during marriage and upon its dissolution. The former principle was stressed in debates about the new law and reflected in various provisions in the bill. Two decades later, the divorce of the parties remains the operational basis of the legislation. In cultural terms, rights have been promoted at the expense of responsibilities.

It is doubtful however, that we have removed fault from the resolution of family relations consequent on marriage breakdown. While the proportion of divorces that are fully litigated are a minority, conflicts over finances, property, the care and parenting of children, access and child support remain substantial. Child support and access in particular remain areas in which many former spouses have ongoing, sometimes chronic, disputes in which fault and retribution are common factors.

Family law has not been static. In a series of measures, the notion of personal responsibility, as determined by the parties, is being strengthened. First, there has been the encouragement for parents to voluntarily enter into plans for the care of their children. Secondly, the Commonwealth Attorney-General announced legislation that will allow couples, both before and during a marriage, to make binding financial agreements about property. This has already occurred for couples in de facto unions. In NSW, under the De Facto Relationships Act and in Victoria, under the Property Law Act, couples have been able to enter legally binding agreements for more than 10 years about property settlements. The notion of marriage as a contractual agreement is reflected in the language of change. The Attorney-GeneralÕs discussion paper on property and family law speaks of marriage as Ôan economic partnership as well as a social relationship.Õ

These developments are part of a growing trend towards allowing people to make their own agreements about their marriages and the consequences upon their breakdown. Similar developments are occurring in reforms to child support legislation.

When fully implemented, the new provisions will enable couples to voluntarily determine many of the arrangements for their own marriage, including their respective rights and responsibilities should the terms be breached and the contract broken. This establishes a new principle of responsibility. Currently, many parties to a marriage are barely aware of the range of financial, social and emotional commitments, much less have any say as to where ongoing responsibility lies, should one or other of the parties decide to divorce.

These provisions could be extended to other non-financial aspects of marriage, for example couples committing to education or counselling, if problems should arise. Naturally, any provisions need to be subject to the courtsÕ obligation to ensure the best interest of the child. Further, it is possible for States or courts to define the types of marriage contracts that are contrary to public policy and would not be enforced, and enforce other contracts. It is also possible for States to deem certain conditions to be part of all contracts.

Overseas developments also reflect endeavours to encourage stable marriages. In the US, at least 20 states have introduced bills to change divorce laws, either by extending waiting periods, repealing no-fault divorce, mandating counselling, or encouraging pre-marriage education. In Louisiana, the first state to pass such a law, couples can choose between the existing marriage regime based on no-fault divorce, and a new form of covenant marriage. The covenant marriage requires couples to swear that they will live together forever as husband and wife. The partners must disclose to each other Ôeverything which could adversely affectÕ their decision to marry. Both must sign a notarised affidavit, swearing they have talked about the nature, purposes and responsibilities of marriage during their premarital counselling. They are legally required to seek marital counselling if problems arise in their marriage.

The Florida legislature has passed a Marriage Preparation and Preservation Act which mandates high school courses on marriage and relationship skill-based education, encourages pre-marriage education through financial incentives, and requires parent education and family stabilisation programmes upon filing for divorce.

Last year, the Blair government announced in its Green Paper, Supporting Families, a proposed 15 day cooling-off period before marriage, and legally binding pre-nuptial agreements in a series of sweeping proposals. The paper also proposed an enhanced role for civil registrars, including new pastoral and counselling functions, and a national parenting and family institute.

Poverty and welfare dependence

The number of Australian children living in families dependent upon income support has doubled in the past two decades. In 1997, almost 1.2 million children lived in such families, about 60 per cent of them with only one parent. Similarly there has been a substantial increase in the number and proportion of Australian families with children with no parent in paid work. There are also an increasing number of children growing up in sole parent families and over one in four children are born to an unmarried mother.

According to a survey by Australian National University (ANU) Professor Peter McDonald, 65 per cent of ex-nuptial births are to women in de facto relationships who have never married; 18 per cent to never married solo women; 8.5 per cent to divorced but solo women; and 8.5 per cent to women divorced but in a de facto relationship. ÔAbout half the ex-nuptial births are to women who are in and out of relationships, women with complex relationship histories. Even if the child is born in a de facto relationship, that often breaks down,Õ Professor McDonald is reported as saying.

The research indicates that a third of the de facto parents marry after the birth of their child, but 15 per cent of these marriages end within a few years. Where the childÕs parents donÕt marry, 38 per cent of these relationships break-up in less than five years. Of the women having ex-nuptial children, the ANU research indicates that 51 per cent did not finish secondary school and 70 per cent had no post-school qualifications.

Of the 620,000 single parent families in Australia in 1993, 84 per cent were mother-headed. An Australian Institute of Family Studies survey which interviewed parents 18 months after the birth of their child found that 19 per cent of de facto couples had separated, compared to two per cent of married couples.

Although Professor Ann Harding has shown that child poverty in Australia was cut by a third between 1982 and 1995-96 (Harding and Szukalska 1998), children in sole parent families are much more likely to be in poverty. We also know that children from these families have increased risks of poor health, unemployment and relationship difficulties in their adult lives.

This should not be seen to belittle the efforts of many single parents, against difficult odds, who are successfully raising their children and who deserve our support; nor to fail to recognise that some married couples are failing at the task. Nor it is to suggest a return to marriage forms of earlier years.

However, a caring society should be concerned about the long-term welfare of its children. It should have an aspiration to encourage circumstances that will advantage them.

An unknown factor in Australia is the real extent of welfare dependency. Although the average length on welfare is 2-3 years, research is only now being undertaken to measure intergenerational welfare dependency in Australia. British studies indicate that over five years to 1996, six in 10 of the lone mothers on welfare left income support but a third ended up back on the pension when new relationships failed, jobs were lost or new children arrived.

Conclusion

While we read from time to time sensational reports that marriage and family life is fast disappearing, the majority of our children grow-up with their biological parents and life-long commitment remains a popular aspiration, particularly amongst young people Marriage and family life remain the optimal conditions for the socialisation and education of childrenÕs character and values, without which liberal democracy and civil society cannot properly flourish. For these reasons, we cannot ignore the trends affecting families today.

Just as economic reform has been the major policy challenge of the 1980s and 90s, how we address family issues will be a central concern of the next decade. The tragedy of marriage breakdown is not just the $3-$6 billion it costs the nation each year: It is the personal and emotional trauma which research increasingly indicates affects many children, even into their adulthood; and the consequent diminution of health, educational opportunities, and well-being, including the stability of the relationships of children whose parents divorced.

Our choice is clear. We can throw our hands up in despair, unwilling or unable to propose a solution, with all the social consequences that follow; or we can take a positive step forward, committed to the aspiration so many people share, in the hope that with practical support and encouragement, we can continue to build a strong nation based on a healthy society with its foundation of stable family life.

References

Amato, Paul 1987, Children in Australian Families: The Growth of Competence, Australian Institute of Family Studies, Melbourne.

Amato, Paul and Allan Booth 1997, A Generation at Risk: Growing up in an era of family upheaval, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.

Andrews, Kevin and Michelle Curtis 1998, Changing Australia, Federation Press, Sydney.

Arndt, Bettina 1998, ÔDoubletalk about single parentsÕ, Sydney Morning Herald, 8 December

Berger Peter and Richard Neuhaus 1977, To Empower People, American Enterprise Institute, Washington DC.

Bronfenbrenner, Urie 1994, Address, Australian Institute of Family Studies, Melbourne.

Carlson, Allan and David Blankenhorn 1998, ÔMarriage and TaxesÕ, The Weekly Standard, February 9.

Council on Families in America 1995, Marriage in America, New York.

Gallagher, Maggie and David Blankenhorn 1997, ÔFamily FeudÕ, The American Prospect (July-August).

Glenn, Norval D. 1987, ÔContinuity versus change, Sanguineness versus concern: Views of the American Family in the late 1980sÕ, Journal of Family Issues 8(4).

Harding, Ann and Agnieszka Szukalska 1998, A Portrait of Child Poverty in Australia in 1995-96, National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling, Canberra.

Home Office (UK) 1998, Supporting Families: A Consultation Document, London.

House of Representatives Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs 1998, To have and to holdøStrategies to strengthen marriage and relationships, Parliament of Australia, Canberra.

Institute for American Values 1998, A Call to Civil Society: Why democracy needs moral truths, New York.

Ladbrook, Denis 1997, ÔWhy marriage matters: An Australian perspectiveÕ, Threshold 57: 9-10.

Marsh, Alan 1998, ÔWhat happens to lone parents?Õ, Australian Institute of Family Studies, Melbourne

Moynihan, Daniel Patrick 1989, ÔTowards a Post-Industrial Social PolicyÕ, The Public Interest, Summer

National Advisory Council on Youth Suicide Protection 1998, National Action Plan for Youth Suicide Protection, Department of Health and Aged Care, Canberra.

Pech, Jocelyn and Frances McCoull 1998, ÔIntergenerational Poverty and Welfare Dependence: Is there an Australian problem?Õ, Australian Institute of Family Studies, Melbourne.

Prime Ministerial Youth Homelessness Taskforce 1998, Putting Families in the Picture, Department of Family and Community Services, Canberra.

Tapper, Alan 1990, The Family in the Welfare State, Allen & Unwin, Sydney.

Waite, Linda 1997, ÔWhy marriage mattersÕ, Threshold 57: 4-8.

About the Author
Kevin Andrews MP is Federal Member for Menzies and Chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs. He is also Chairman of the Government Policy Committee on Family and Community Services. This article is an edited version of a seminar delivered at The Centre for Independent Studies on March 17, 1999.

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