Parents and Social Policy

• fewer number of children born
• proportionately more unwed mothers
• proportionately more women in the labor force with young children
• a high divorce rate

The four factors Popenoe of easily identifiable changes in family patterns is not mutually exclusive.  Each factor is affected by the other in complex ways. The reasons are multifaceted including social, cultural, health, and economic.

No one questions whether children benefit from positive paternal involvement:  financial, emotional or otherwise.

there are pressures on working families for the provision of childcare. increased level of maternal emplooyment is the expanded need for alternative child care. Quality child care is expensive.  the annual costs range from 7,000 to 12,0000

latchkey or self-care children make up a substantial number.  One in five children are currently unsupervised after school

• do not finish high school and are unemployed
• prospects for earning a college degree and finding a good job that will lift them above poverty level is not good 
• high risk for premature births
• less likely to obtain prenatal care

• cost of hospitalization for premature infants with very low birth weight can easily exceed 100,000
• one estimate in the US comes to more than $14 Billion per year

Low-birth-weight babies are also at higher risk for developmental delay and other developmental problems, which make it difficult for these children to be successful in school later on

The public education system in teh US is falling short in providing adequate schooling so that most children can master the skills they need to continue their education and to succeeed in teh workplace

• an adolescent dropping out of school - are high, both on individual and societal levels.
• 1.2 million teenagres 7% are dropping out of school and are not working

most likely require public services (such as food stamps and subsidized housing) and health care assistance

school to prison pipeline minor school misbehavior, is responded to with harsh punishment (suspesions or expulsion) consequently, vunerable yourth get involved in the crimilnal justice system..  Leads to school failure, crime and prison

• the juvenile justice system, property damage and loss, medical and psychological expenses..the US spends $1 trillion on crime.
• violent youth cost $1.6 million to 2.3 millsion

• The costs associated with a maltreated child include physical and mental health problems, pain and trauma, and lost productivity.
• child maltreatment bill came to $210.12 per child.  If untreated the costs continue to to increase.

Social policies are the best way to prevent new generation of individuals fallng prey to the same harmful, expensive problems.

Social policy refers to the principles that guid decisions or efforts to achieve desired goasl at the group level

Infant death rates are largely attributable to the lack of prenatal care.

US only country that did not require paid parental leave for new parents as a national governmetn-mandated policy

• parens patraie been around since teh colonial days. 
• Latin for parent of hte nation
• Refers to the doctrine tha tthe state is the ultimate guardian of all children or people wiht a disability

Orphanages were originally established in the US to house children whose parents had dies.