Family

(families)

Family is often invoked in political debates in Australia but it is an extremely difficult concept to define. A family is a group of people who share bonds deriving from kinship, co-residence or care. Although families are sometimes thought of as natural units within society, the groups that are recognised as families differ markedly from one society to another. Families are always socially constructed and official definitions of family used by governments are always deeply political. Family is used in contemporary Australian political discussion in two main ways. The first is as a focus of social policy in areas such as child care, parental leave, domestic violence and family law. The second is as a part of a socially conservative political agenda proposed by sections of the Coalition and Labor parties as well as religiously based minor parties, such as the new Family First Party and the established Christian Democrats.

Social policy concerns that affect families have changed in recent decades to reflect a shift in the public- and private-sphere responsibilities of men and women, from a traditional model of male bread-winners and female home-makers to a model in which many women have opportunities for workforce participation and some men have taken on greater roles within the home. The emergence of government-funded and community-based child care centres since the early 1970s is an example of this shift.