Press Releases

Rethinking Families

by Fiona Williams
ESRC CAVA Research Group

Published by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation
Price: £6.00 | Paperback | 96pp | ISBN: 1 903080 02 9

Publication Date: 23 June 2004

A new book published today shows that, whilst the shape of commitments may have changed, commitment itself is as strong as ever. The book calls on the government to recognise this and to change the balance of its welfare reforms and citizenship programme in favour of the ethic of care. Care, as much as paid work, the book argues, should be seen as the basis of citizenship, social cohesion and the promotion of equality.

In Rethinking Families, published by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Fiona Williams, Director of the ESRC Research Group on Care, Values and the Future of Welfare (CAVA), argues that government policy needs to support and acknowledge, practically and positively, people's sense of moral commitment to children, partners, parents and friends.

Basing her argument on research into how people in contemporary Britain negotiate their family lives, work and personal relationships, Fiona Williams contends that policy makers underestimate the significance people place on care and commitment because:-

• They assume that recent social change – with modern households containing increasingly diverse family and friendship support networks – has led to people losing their moral commitment and sense of social responsibility.

• Government policies are based on the assumption that what impels people are the financial advantages from paid work, not the commitment they have to others.

• Much of the caring activity that takes place is taken for granted, invisible and not valued.

Rethinking Families suggests that social policies should take into account the significance of people’s care commitments in a changing social and economic landscape and that caring activity, in its increasingly varied forms, should be valued, respected and supported by both legislation and services. This involves listening to what support people need – be they adults or children.

Flexible working hours and conditions and access to affordable good-quality care provision will enable men and women to choose how best to combine paid work and care. The book also calls for better pay, conditions and training for care workers.

Fiona Williams comments: ‘Above all we need a vision which places a value on people’s commitments and their caring activities. Social policy needs to change to be more aligned with the way we live and the demands that are placed upon us. People are finding new loving and living arrangements that meet their emotional, social and economic requirements. This book shows that social policy needs to learn how to support them.’

Patricia Hewitt, Secretary of State for Trade and Industry and Minister for Women, says: ‘I welcome this report, and in particular the research results which underline the deep commitment that people demonstrate towards their friends and loved ones, irrespective of the form their family takes. Government policy should always work with the grain of people’s lives. That's why we have put in place a range of policies which help to provide a climate that supports people in different kinds of families in carrying out their caring commitments while, at the same time, working to support themselves. I particularly welcome the proposal for promoting and valuing an ‘ethic of care’ alongside an ethic of work.’

For further information and review copies please contact: Felicity Luard or Louisa Hooper
Tel: 020 7908 7604, Fax: 020 7908 7580
E-mail: info@gulbenkian.org.uk

Rethinking Families is available through booksellers in the UK or can be ordered from Central Books:
E-mail: orders@centralbooks.com
Website: www.centralbooks.co.uk

Notes to Editors

1. Fiona Williams is Professor of Social Policy in the School of Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Leeds, and Director of the ESRC CAVA Research Group. She has written widely on gender, ‘race’, ethnicity, and class in relation to social policy. Central to her work is a concern to find ways in which people, especially those who have been marginalized, can themselves define the nature of the problems they face. Her current research focuses on the ethical, social, political and international dimensions of care. She is the author of Social Policy: A Critical Introduction. Issues of 'Race', Gender and Class (Polity Press, 1989); co-editor (with Dorothy Atkinson) of 'Know me as I am': An Anthology of Prose, Poetry and Art from People with Learning Difficulties (Hodder and Stoughton, 1990); (with Joanna Bornat et al) Community Care: A Reader, (Macmillan, 1993 and 1997); and (with Ann Oakley and Jennie Popay) Welfare Research: A Critical Review (UCL Press, 1999). She is co-editor, with Ann Orloff and Barbara Hobson, of the journal Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State and Society; she is on the national council of Catalyst; and a member of the National and Family Parenting Institute’s Commission on Families and the Well-Being of Children. Please contact Colman Getty PR to arrange an interview.

2. Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation (Portugal) UK Branch, established 1956, has a reputation for recognising and initiating innovative ideas. It commissions and publishes books or reports which reflect and promote current priorities, concerns and areas of interest arising from its UK funding programmes in contemporary arts, education, social policy and Anglo-Portuguese cultural relations. Recent titles include Social Enterprise in Anytown by John Pearce and Public Interest: New models for delivering public services? by Jane Steele, Mary Tetlow and Alison Graham of the Public Management Foundation. For more information visit www.gulbenkian.org.uk or contact info@gulbenkian.org.uk.

3. The ESRC Research Group for the Study of Care, Values and the Future of Welfare (CAVA) has undertaken a wide-ranging research programme into changes in family lives and personal relationships. For more information about CAVA’s research activities, contact Keleigh Groves on 0113 233 4605 or visit the website: www.leeds.ac.uk/cava.

4. The Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) is the UK’s largest funding agency for research and postgraduate training relating to social and economic issues. It provides independent, high-quality, relevant research to business, the public sector and Government. The ESRC invests more than £76 million every year in social science and at any time is supporting some 2,000 researchers in academic institutions and research policy institutes. It also funds postgraduate training within the social sciences to nurture the researchers of tomorrow. For more information, visit the website: www.esrc.ac.uk

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