Introduction

The last decade has seen a limited focus on men as fathers within a wide-ranging project emphasising the importance of investing in children. There has been an array of developments in relation to strengthening the responsibilities of birth fathers and some opening up of possibilities for social fathering through legislation. There have been moves towards supporting both mothers and fathers in sharing care, although these are limited and do not seem concerned to promote gender equity. This chapter identifies the key developments in policies, analysing their rationale and, where possible, identifying effects. A brief attempt is made to locate such developments within a wider international context, although an extended discussion of this is beyond the scope of the chapter.

Policy matters

Policy analysts have debated the factors influencing/determining outputs for many years (Borchorst, 2006). There is little support for previously held ideas that policy makers react rationally to objective conditions and many differing theoretical approaches are apparent. Social constructivists, for example, argue that policy making involves a constant discursive struggle over criteria and framing of issues, and the way they are framed attributes meaning to them (Borchorst, 2006: 104; see also Bacchi, 1999). Comparisons of different countries highlight considerable differences in how and when issues reach the political agenda. For example, when British fathers were given a legal right in 2003 to take paid leave for a period of time when their child was born, this was almost 30 years after Sweden had introduced such a right (O’Brien, 2005). Furthermore, although child support legislation has been introduced in many countries, its framing is often very different (see Lewis, 2002).

Froggett (2002) has used psychoanalytic concepts to understand both social policies and practices in the post-war welfare state in the UK. This is part of a growing interest in thinking about the psychic dimensions of entitlement, risk, responsibility, compassion and dependency, and developing policies based on such thinking.

It is acknowledged that the causal relationship between family policies and family change can be quite complex (Ellingsæter and Leira, 2006a: 5). Policy interventions may play different roles in different historic periods and the timing of policy reform is also of importance. Welfare state policies may react, adapt or be proactive in relation to family policies. Moreover, not all family change becomes the subject of policy change.