Pluralization of Families

The family is an institution central to individual wellbeing because it provides caretaking, human development, economic interdependency, and affiliation. This chapter defines families as closely knit social groups bounded by relations of locally recognized kinship that are based on expectations of reciprocity, obligation, and obedience, usually but not always based on blood lineage and/or stable bonding and a shared dwelling. The vast majority of the world’s population live the majority of their lives within family units, of all shapes and sizes. Regardless of the tremendous diversity in family type and composition, and their socio-economic, political, and cultural contexts, all families have certain commonalities. They all must confront the need to balance production and reproduction, or, in other words, ensure income and care. Most families at some point raise children, and all age, if they are lucky enough not to die young. At best, families also provide their members with love, and a sense of meaning and belonging. At worst, families may grapple with severe material deprivation or be settings for neglect, abuse, and inequality in power relations, stunting the ability of their members to flourish as human beings. Families are also a site of potential struggle and conflict. The driving question of the chapter is how societies can support conditions for the twenty-first century that allow families to flourish, and at the same time promote individual agency, equality, and dignity. Two interlocking questions follow from this: first, how can societies support families’ important functions-caregiving, human development, and belonging-in order to promote the dignity, life opportunities, and risk protection of family members? Second, as they support these functions, how can societies minimize socio-economic and other inequalities and domination that families often reproduce, within and between them? This chapter is divided into three parts. The first part provides a broad context for discussing families. It identifies boundaries between families and other spheres or institutions; summarizes contemporary challenges; discusses the legal recognition of families, both regarding partners and offspring; and finally, situates the socio-economic context of families. Part two focuses on relations within families. The discussion is divided into four sections: relations between partners; adult-child relations; aging family members; and other adults. Part three provides policy recommendations. The empirical evidence shows a broad trend toward legal acceptance of consensual adult partnerships, although with regional variation. On partner relations, the evidence shows an overall tendency toward more gender-equitable family law and greater gender equality in education, labor force participation, and asset ownership, and that these are associated with improvements in women’s bodily integrity and more shared decision-making, as well as enhanced wellbeing of the family as a whole. At the same time, these links are not automatic, and require concerted efforts by the state to both provide and enforce a legal framework in support of gender equality. On adult-child relations, the evidence shows that a state role in ensuring income floors for families with children is essential for children’s physical and material wellbeing. Beyond this, ensuring a healthy balance of family (including paternal) care and good-quality institutional care allows children and their families to flourish. Finally, state efforts to protect children are most successful when they routinely support families in preventive ways. Care for older people around the world remains centered in the family. The challenge for aging societies is to ensure access to care services to relieve the burden on families, especially already overburdened women, and to ensure the dignity of older people. The policy recommendations include, on family recognition, the view that the goal of state policy should be to support the broader range of relationships in which people are organizing their family lives, consistent with promoting human dignity and fairness within and outside of these relationships. For rights and regulations within families, laws should uphold equality and dignity between partners (and other adults), and respect and protection for children. Given the massive transformations that families have undergone over the past half century, to deal with twenty-first-century challenges we recommend a strong, twofold role for the state (beyond legal regulations) to ensure flourishing families: first, transfers that guarantee a minimum income floor for all families with dependents (children, disabled, elderly); and second, publicly funded health, education, and care services with universal principles, to allow families to maintain a healthy balance between the twin responsibilities of production and reproduction. While some of these investments pay for themselves over the medium and long term, we also make a call for progressive taxation, including a strong inheritance tax, to alleviate inequalities between families. In sum, families based on egalitarian principles, with supportive state policies that allow families to flourish, provide the most conducive setting to do what families can do at their best: provide a space where persons are loved and nurtured, love and nurture back, and are able to flourish to their fullest potential.