Child and Family Policies in the United States at the Opening of the Twenty‐first Century

Abstract

A repeated theme, characterizing US social policies toward children and their families, is that the US has no explicit family policy, nor does it have a coherent package of social policies that are targeted on children and their families. Nonetheless, there is general agreement that the US does have policies that have consequences for children and their families, and that many of these might constitute "implicit" family policies. However, these policies tend to be limited in scale, coverage, and generosity and are usually categorical and narrowly focused. They lack the comprehensiveness and universality of policies in other advanced industrialized countries. Furthermore, the US has consistently invested a significantly smaller share of GDP in children and their families than almost all the other such countries. One consequence is that the situation of children in the US seems to be much worse than that of children in other advanced industrialized countries. In more recent years, however, there have been some efforts at improving child and family policies and the story now is a mixed one-but there remain major deficits in our policies and programs. Fortunately, children's issues are emerging on the national policy agenda. In this article, we describe current US child and family policies, touch on earlier history for context, and discuss the issues facing the US as we enter the twenty-first century. Ultimately, we need to confront the question of what can be done now to advance the children's cause on the national agenda.

Participant characteristics and outcomes of relationship education in the transition to parenthood

“…This applies to Norway as well, where the national authorities have been funding various RE measures over the last two decades. Such funding reflects a tradition within the Scandinavian countries to regard family welfare as a public responsibility rather than placing emphasis on private providers, as is often the case in the USA and the UK (Esping-Andersen, 1990;Kamerman, 1991;Kamerman & Kahn, 2001 (Renick, Blumberg, & Markman, 1992), which is considered to be the best documented RE program (Baucom, Hahlweg, Atkins, Engl, & Thurmaier, 2006;Renick et al, 1992;Schilling, Baucom, Burnett, Allen, & Ragland, 2003;Stanley, 2001). Good Couple Relationship involves an eight-hour workshop that normally is delivered in two sessions after the birth of a couple's baby.…”

A Public/Private Partnership in Offering Relationship Education to the Norwegian Population

“…An important characteristic of the relationship education field in Norway is the involvement of the national authorities. This reflects a tradition within Scandinavian countries to regard family welfare, to a large extent, as a public responsibility rather than placing emphasis on private providers, as is often the case in the United States and the United Kingdom (Esping‐Andersen, 1990; Kamerman & Kahn, 1988, 2001). Although there are similarities between the public family support schemes in the Scandinavian countries, Norway is the only country with a scheme to grant support to relationship education initiatives.…”

Social insurance and children: The relationship between Social Security, economic well-being, and family context among child recipients

“…Much of the research in the United States to date has examined means-tested programs, such as Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) (Anthony, Vu, and Austin 2008;Joo 2011;Loprest 1999;Slack, Magnuson, and Berger 2007;Wu 2008); the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program (Daly and Burkhauser 2003;Davies, Rupp, and Wittenburg 2009;Duggan and Kearney 2007); Food Stamps (Rank and Hirschl 2009); and the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) (Kamerman and Kahn 2001;Mendenhall 2006).…”

“…Although there is no comprehensive set of public policies geared toward US children, a number of disparate programs, most of them means-tested, have important consequences for them (Isaacs 2009;Joo 2011;Kamerman and Kahn 2001). A major means-tested program is TANF.…”

“…Child-contingent tax benefits have consequences for a larger segment of the US population due to their far-reaching scope (Joo 2011;Kamerman and Kahn 2001). The largest refundable tax credit, which increases with the presence of dependent children, is the EITC (see Mendenhall 2006, for a review of the program).…”