Explorations in a proposed national policy for children and families.

Chung, Woo Sik ; Pardeck, John T.

Significant social, economic, and demographic changes have occurred in families over the last three decades. These changes have had a pronounced impact on children; many now live with only one parent, typically mothers, and often lack consistent involvement and support from fathers. More mothers and fathers hold jobs, yet children are the poorest group in America. Moreover, many routines of family life have changed, regardless of family income, resulting in children and parents spending less time together (National Commission on Children, 1991).

The following is a summary of the significant changes that have occurred in American families, changes which have resulted in new pressures on children and their families:

In 1960 children accounted for 36% of all Americans; in 1990 they were 26%, and by 2010 only 23% of the population will be children (U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, No. 1018, 1989).

Over the past 20 years, a rapidly rising divorce rate and an increase in out-of-wedlock childbearing, particularly among teenagers, has dramatically increased the number of children living with one parent (U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, No. 168, 1989).

One of the most dramatic changes has been the increasing numbers of mothers entering the workforce. Between 1970 and 1990, the proportion of mothers with children under age six who were working or looking for work rose from 32 to 58%. In 1990, over 74% of women with children between the ages of 6 to 13 were working or looking for work (Cherlin, 1988).

Children today are the poorest Americans; one in five lives in a family below the poverty level (U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, No. 169, 1989).

Thirty-two million Americans, including 8.3 million children under age 18, have no form of health insurance coverage (National Commission on Children, 1991).

One in four adolescents have some form of serious, long-term problems (Carnegie Council on Adolescent development, 1989). For example, approximately 1 million teenage girls become pregnant each year, and half of them give birth (Carnegie Council on Adolescent development, 1989).

Approximately 500,000 young people drop out of school each year (Kaufman & Frase, 1990).

Since 1981, there has been an 80% rise in the proportion of children receiving psychological assistance annually (Zill & Schoenborn, 1990).

Problems facing children and families are further complicated by the fact that the United States does not have a coherent national policy; research reports that current family programs are uncoordinated and often ineffective (Pardeck, 1990). The United States is the only developed country which does not have coordinated programs specifically aimed at children and their families (Pardeck, 1990). Most of them include such programs as Aid to Families with Dependent Children, Social Security benefits, tax exemptions, and veteran's benefits. These programs are largely reactive in nature; more importantly, they are not available to all children and families.

The major emphasis of programs affecting children and families are often designed for individual family members, not the entire family system. Further, these programs place great emphasis on economic supports and not social services (Kain-Caudle, 1973). Economic supports are in the form of social insurance and public assistance. Social service programs are divided between public and private agencies (Pardeck, 1990). Research suggests that public agencies provide the greatest amount of economic assistance while private agencies place greater emphasis on social services often administered by highly trained professional staffs (Karger & Stoesz, 1994). This leaves many needy low income children and their families without access to them.

A model national policy for children and their families must accommodate the pluralistic nature of American society. The policy needs to take into account the political, economic, and social diversity of the population. However, it must have a degree of centralized control to insure social justice for all. Given the political and economic diversity of the United States, the highly centralized programs found in European countries are not appropriate models.

Political dialogue on children and family programs has been ongoing for several decades. Regardless of the outcome of this dialogue, Kamerman and Kahn (1976) have concluded that no developed society can avoid providing programs for children and their families. They suggest that the real choice is between a consistent, coherent policy versus one that is haphazard and inconsistent. Two notable studies which provide guidelines for a coherent national policy are Toward a National Policy for Children and Families (Aldrich & Associates, 1976), and All Our Children (Keniston and The Carnegie Council on Children, 1977).

Toward a National Policy for Children and Families recommends that the federal government take the lead in its development. According to this study, the core components should include:

1. Employment and tax and cash benefit programs that assure an adequate income.

2. A broad and carefully integrated system of support services.

3. Planned and coordinated mechanisms that ensure adequate coverage and access to a full range of social services and health care.

It also recommends that research be aimed at improving the knowledge base for all programs.

All Our Children, makes similar recommendations. It suggests the inclusion of the following:

1. Jobs for parents and a decent living standard accomplished through full and fair employment, and a decent minimum income level.

2. Support for more flexible working conditions; the demands of a parent's employment should conflict as little as possible with the needs of the family.

3. An integrated network of family services with the implementation of federal standards of quality and fairness.

4. Proper health care for all children based on the recognition that their health depends as much on income, environment, and diet as it does on hospitals, nurses, and pediatricians.

5. Improvement of legal protection for children outside and inside the family with every effort made to keep families together.

Both of these national policies stress the importance of economic support, health care, and social services. However, All Our Children appears to place greater emphasis on children's rights and also stresses flexible working hours for parents.

Most of the recommendations offer realistic programs, and the model national policy presented below integrates several ideas from each.

The core philosophy upon which the proposed model for a children and family policy rests is the family as a vital social system that is critical to the well-being of children and the larger society. Berger and Neuahus (1977) describe the essence of the philosophy as follows:

(It) means public recognition of the family as an institution. It is not enough to be concerned for individuals more or less incidentally related to the family as an institution. Public recognition of the family as an institution is imperative because every society has an inescapable interest in how children are raised and how values are transmitted to the next generation. (p. 8)

With all these points in mind, the proposed model policy would include:

1. A decent standard of living for all children and families created through guaranteed jobs in the private sector and government. Every head of a household would be guaranteed a job. If he or she is not able to work, the family would be provided a minimum income. Every effort must be made to keep families together.

2. Comprehensive health care for the entire family would be imperative. This should not be a policy only for children but for parents as well. The policy must stress the importance of diet, environment, and prevention. Currently, many families experience tremendous economic pressure due to exorbitant health care costs.

3. Social services should meet the needs of the modern family and include child care, counseling, and services for special problems including permanent or temporary separation from the family. Comprehensive social services would be a dramatic departure from the traditional approaches which are mainly in the form of economic support programs such as social insurance and public welfare payments.

4. Provision for expanded research concerning the family, the goal of which would be to gauge family needs. The research would emphasize three main areas: (1) studies of the family in its natural setting; (2) systematic experimentation with and evaluation of proposed programs, and (3) the development of social indicators dealing with children. The main thrust would be to further the understanding of the problems of the family as a social system. As suggested by Pardeck (1990), too much current research is aimed at the individual.

Strategies for Analysis and Implementation

Dubey's (1979) "complexity reduction process" offers a useful strategy for analyzing and solving social problems. This process involves a number of steps: (1) the problem is identified; (2) an analysis of the variables which one believes contributes to the problem is performed; and (3) a solution to the problem is sought. The effect of each of the contributing variables can be either precisely determined, or they may be viewed as interacting in complex ways (Dubey, 1979). Problems may be classified as Simple, Compound, Complex, or Meta.

Economic supports and health care for children and their families can be classified as Simple problems. The core variables that contribute to problems related to the economic well-being of families and their access to health care are known; income distribution is clearly uneven (see Table 1). It can be observed that the second poorest and the poorest 40% of families received only 15% of the nation's total income. The richest 5% received over 17% of the total income; the richest 20% receives 44%. As a result of Reagan's economic policies, the richest 5% of families had the greatest amount of income since 1952; the poorest 20% had the least amount since 1954. In essence, Reagan's economic strategy was to shift wealth from poor families to wealthy families. A sound family policy would do the reverse.

The data in Table 1 support the contention that there is adequate wealth in the United States to provide a decent income for all families. The strategy would be to redistribute income, which could be accomplished within the current economic system by providing heads of families with jobs that provide a decent standard of living. This could be accomplished through a cooperative effort between private industry and government. The increased income to families would benefit private industry because it would result in a higher demand for goods and services. Family units without an employable head of household would also be provided an adequate income by the government, which would also result in benefits to private industry and to government through increased tax revenues.

Table 1 Income distribution of American families in 1988

 Percentage of
 Total National
Population Category Income Received

Poorest Fifth 4.6 Lowest since 1954
Second Poorest Fifth 10.7 Lowest ever recorded
Middle Fifth 16.7 Lowest ever recorded
Richest Fifth 44 Highest ever recorded
Richest Five Percent 17.2 Highest since 1952
Middle Three-Fifths 51.4 Lowest ever recorded

Source: O'Hare, Mann, Porter, and Greenstein (1990)

Health care can be viewed as a Simple problem because the central issue is the need to institute a more rational approach to its distribution; unfortunately, the quality of health care is marginal for a great number of people. Further, the United States spends more on health care than any other developed nation. The ability to pay is the determinant of receipt of health care services; quality health care and higher income levels are positively correlated (Karger & Stoesz, 1994).

The demand for a national health insurance program in the United States began in 1912. The original Social Security Act in the 1930s contained a national health insurance program; however, it was eliminated in order to insure passage. Legislation for a national health insurance program has been introduced in each session of Congress since 1939. In 1949, President Truman urged the enactment of a compulsory system for health care in his State of the Union message (Pardeck, 1990). Most recently, President Clinton introduced the most serious effort to enact a national health insurance program since the 1930s. Current public opinion polls show that the overwhelming majority of Americans favor a national health insurance program (Karger & Stoesz, 1994).

Social services and research gauging family needs are classified as Meta problems. The variables involved in both of these issues are extremely complex because the kinds of services children and families need vary greatly throughout the country. This variation also calls for a research strategy that is sensitive to problems that are unique to certain areas; for example, problems of rural families are much different from those of urban families. Given the complexity of the social services needed, citizens must have input into what they perceive as their needs in a given community. An innovative strategy that has the potential to insure receipt of relevant services can be realized through a voucher system which allows consumers to choose the services they feel are needed. A detailed discussion of how a voucher system would operate for children and families is presented in To Empower People (Berger & Neuhaus, 1977). Currently, the use of vouchers as a strategy for social services delivery is being taken very seriously by social planners throughout the United States (Karger & Stoesz, 1994).

The basic function of research will be to improve social services, and by so doing, consumers will be more likely to use them. To insure the quality of the research, corporations, universities, and other foundations would compete for the federal grants.

CONCLUSION

The United States is the only developed nation that does not have a national policy supporting children and families. The policy offered here includes economic supports, health care, social services, and a research program for gauging family needs. The "complexity reduction process" for analyzing and solving problems related to children and families has the potential for creating a viable national policy.

REFERENCES

Aldrich, R., & Associates (1976). Toward a national policy for children and families. Washington, DC: National Academy of Sciences.

Berger, P. L., & Neuhaus, R. (1977). To empower people: The role of mediating structures in public policy. Washington, DC: The American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research.

Carnegie Council on Adolescent Development. (1989). Turning points: Preparing American youth for the 21st. century. Washington, DC: Carnegie Council on Adolescent Development.

Cherlin, A. J. (1988). The changing American family and public policy. Washington, DC: Urban Institute Press.

Dubey, S. N. (1979). Social planning process: Steps and considerations. International Social Work, 22, 3-10.

Kain-Caudle, P. R. (1973). Comparative social policy and social security. New York: University Press.

Kamerman, S., & Kahn, A. (1976). Explorations in family policy. Social Work, 21, 181-186.

Karger, H., & Stoesz, D. (1994). American social welfare policy: A pluralist approach (2nd ed.). New York: Longman.

Kaufman, P., & Frase, M. J. (1990). Dropout rates in the United States: 1989. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education.

Keniston, K., & The Carnegie Council on Children (1977). All our children. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.

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National Commission on Children (1991). Beyond rhetoric: A new American agenda for children and families. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.

Pardeck, J. T. (1990). An analysis of the deep social structure preventing the development of a national policy for children and families in the United States. Early Child Development and Care, 57, 23-30.

U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census (1989). Projections of the population of the United States No. 168: Money income and poverty status in the United States. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.

U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census (1989). Projections of the population of the United States No. 1018: Projections of the population in the United States by age, sex, and race. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.

U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census (1990). Current population reports No. 447: Household and family characteristics. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.

Zill, N., & Schoenborn, C. A. (1990). Developmental, learning and emotional problems: Health of our nation's children, United States, 1988. Hyatts-ville, MD: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Center for Health Statistics.

John T. Pardeck, Ph.D., ACSW, Professor of Social Work, School of Social Work, Southwest Missouri State University, Springfield, MO 65804.