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Executive Summary
Family life is both deeply personal and relevant to wider society. The state of our families influences the stability of our communities. Though Canadians value family life, they are forming families later in the life cycle compared to the past. The reasons for this shift are complex, but public policy can play a role in increasing the opportunity for Canadians who desire to partner or marry, and raise children, to do so. The federal government has long supported families through a variety of policy approaches, yet families are rarely considered a distinct public-policy area.
This paper proposes the first phase of a federal family-formation policy framework. The approach focuses on increasing knowledge to better inform policy development and removing barriers to family formation and growth. The proposed framework will shape the agenda for further policy research and exploration at Cardus.
The paper also considers the place of family in the larger public-policy landscape, briefly reviews the history of federal support for families, and establishes guiding principles for developing a federal family-formation policy approach in Canada.
Introduction
There are few things held more closely to heart than family.1 Yet evidence suggests that many Canadians are struggling to achieve the family life that they desire. Can public policy remove barriers to partnership and childbearing for those Canadians who desire to form these families? What are the appropriate and effective actions that the federal government can take to create better opportunities for family formation?
Historically, the federal government has provided supports to families, though these benefits and programs have not typically been created and implemented as part of one coherent, overall strategy. This paper proposes one possible federal framework for enhancing opportunities for Canadians to build their desired family lives. The paper sets the agenda for further research and exploration of policies to best help Canadians form families.
Challenges Facing Canadian Families
Decades of census data show that Canadian families are shrinking and more Canadians are living alone. The average age at first marriage is increasing, as is the average age for bearing children. The national total fertility rate hit a historic low of 1.4 in 2020, well below the replacement level of 2.1 births per woman over a lifetime. Statistics Canada analysis suggests that the pandemic could result in a ripple effect, as many Canadians delayed having children.2
These demographic trends have been decades in the making, with complex factors contributing to the challenge of partnering and having children. Public policy is one response among many, but a coordinated and coherent federal family policy could improve opportunities for Canadians seeking to partner and form families.
The State of Family Policy
Canadian policymakers and journalists rarely approach family as a distinct policy area. Lydia Miljan, a political scientist at the University of Windsor, states that family policy is treated in this nation as a “minor backwater” in policy discussions. 3 Veteran American policy analyst Theodora Ooms takes an even more pessimistic view, calling family policy the “unwanted stepchild of social policy.”4
Family policy in Canada may have “backwater” status, but there have been many programs developed over the last several decades that have contributed to it, piecemeal as it is. The federal government recently enhanced cash benefits for families, expanded parental leave, and introduced a big-budget childcare plan. The challenge is not the lack of policy but the absence of a coordinated strategy and unifying objective. Miljan writes,
Generally speaking, family policy in Canada may be characterized as an uncoordinated hodgepodge of policies, based on assumptions that are not always clearly recognized or even consistent, and delivered by an assortment of institutions including not only agencies of all three levels of government but also privately run organizations like provincial Children’s Aid Societies, Big Brothers Big Sisters, family planning clinics, and so on.5
All three levels of government and Indigenous communities have a significant stake in creating family policy. Any one level of government is responsible for diverse family-oriented files that do not necessarily share the same goals and objectives and may have overlap with other levels of government. In some cases, policy prescriptions work at cross purposes. There are significant questions and competing assumptions about families that complicate this area for policymakers.
Families are a deeply personal part of the human experience. As Miljan notes, family policy touches on our “most deeply cherished and least questioned beliefs.”6 Family issues connect to the emotional core, and perspectives on family policy embody cultural and social assumptions and aspirations. Policy expert Richard Reeves of the Brookings Institution remarks with tongue in cheek, “Sex, love, marriage, child-rearing; these are intimate, emotional, personal, and complex issues. By comparison to family policy, foreign policy is a breeze.”7
Competing Visions of Family Life
Miljan claims that the federal government lacks a clear vision of family and struggles with the tension between family autonomy and social responsibility to families and their members.8 Competing concepts and visions for family life clash in the public square. As Ooms argues, no single interest speaks for the family, and policymakers often navigate between opposing interests.
As an example, Ooms points to the rise of the children’s advocacy movement that has presented both parallel and conflicting interests within family policy.9 Some family advocates are suspicious of state intervention in family decision-making, while others encourage the state to challenge entrenched social roles and systems within family life.
Social policy often reflects assumptions about society and casts a vision for how it should function. Sociologist Kevin McQuillan, writing over fifteen years ago, maintained that Canadian family policy was largely developed in the shadow of the baby boom, assuming that fertility and population growth would provide a steady funding stream for social programs. McQuillan also argues that family policy assumed a two-parent, single-earner family model.10 Ken Boessenkool, who has conducted research with the C.D. Howe Institute, has argued that tax policy has shifted in the opposite direction, increasingly discriminating against single-earner families.11 Recent policy developments are no less rooted in assumptions about modern families and society. For example, the federal national daycare plan adopts assumptions about Canadian families and their relation to the paid workforce. The program largely benefits urban-dwelling families with two parents in the labour force full-time, working weekdays during regular business hours. The program is far less accommodating to families falling outside these parameters.
A Seat at the (Dinner) Table?
What is the appropriate role of the state in family life? A family is a social institution that forms its members and acts in the family’s collective interest. Individuals may negotiate their interests within the family unit, such as their participation in paid work and unpaid care work, but these decisions are often made in consideration of the family as a whole. At the same time, family functioning has an important impact on community and society. The state has an interest in family stability, but what role should it have in intra-family decision-making? As some researchers have noted, governments often inhibit their own ability to create cohesive family policy by directing measures toward individual family members rather than toward the family as a whole, creating competing interests within family units.12
In short, family policy operates within a tension between individual responsibility and collective interest in families. Professors Patrick Dolan, Nevenka Zegarac, and Jelena Arsic argue that the state leverages incentives and constraints to influence family behaviour.13 For example, paternity leave incentivizes fathers to increase their time with infant children, strengthening important familial bonds. Another goal of paternity leave is to shift the division of unpaid care within families to further gender equality.14 Society may have an interest in both of these goals, but questions remain regarding the role of the state in intra-family decision-making.
The competing assumptions about families and the role of the state in family life are perhaps nowhere more evident than in policymaking directly affecting children. What responsibilities does the state have toward children, and how should the state understand the role and authority of parents?
Political scientist Jane Jenson and co-author Caroline Beauvais identify two paradigms that illustrate this tension and encapsulate family policymaking in Canada. They refer to the first approach as the family responsibility paradigm. This approach considers parents or other family members as the primary authority for child well-being. Under this paradigm, the direct involvement of the state in family life is usually reserved for situations in which parents and family struggle to ensure the well-being of children. Policy levers maximize flexibility, deferring to the family for decision-making regarding labour-force participation and non-parent childcare.15 Public investments in children flow through parents. Policymakers frequently use tax deductions and subsidies under this paradigm.16
Jensen and Beauvais label the second approach investing in children paradigm. This model emphasizes services and programs that come around children and their families. The approach emphasizes early intervention to increase future well-being. While parents are an important component, the approach relies on the expertise of state and civil-society actors to deliver services. Policy levers tend to nudge parents toward workforce participation and particular forms of non-parental care. Policymakers favour programs that include publicly provided and regulated childcare and early-learning environments.
Jensen and Beauvais argue that the investing-in-children paradigm emerged over time and was widely embraced during the 1990s. At that time some provinces created new ministries focused on children and families. Some provinces implemented action plans such as Alberta’s Focus on Children reforms and Nova Scotia’s Child and Youth Action Committee.17
The Canadian public-policy landscape features a mix of these two paradigms. For example, the education system is increasingly burdened with the responsibility to deliver more services directly to children beyond the curriculum. Educators are frequently asked to be social first-responders. Nearly a decade ago, provincial governments reacted to a perceived bullying crisis by introducing legislation that in some jurisdictions compelled school administrators to police student relationships beyond the confines of the school yard.18
Other policy areas work directly with parents and families. The family-centred practice approach views parents as senior partners along with service professionals.19 This approach helps children by coming alongside parents and strengthening them in their natural role.
Our approach at Cardus to family policy views parents and family as the primary caregiving community around children, with the authority and obligation to ensure the well-being of children. We favour the family-responsibility paradigm. Flexible policies associated with the family-responsibility paradigm provide the greatest latitude for families to ensure the well-being of their children. Institutions can best help children by working with kids’ natural caregivers.
Unfortunately, some families are unable to meet their obligations toward children, and the state must intervene for the well-being of these children and parents. In these circumstances, government and its supporting institutions have the heavy responsibility of determining the best interest of the child.
Our framework prioritizes federal policy but acknowledges the interplay between federal and provincial or territorial jurisdictions. The provinces and territories have a significant role in family policy, and future work could expand the framework to address this role.
Federal public policy can contribute to an increase in opportunity for family formation, but other social institutions also make valuable contributions. This proposal focuses on federal policy; social institutions such as faith communities, local associations, and other civil-society actors could be considered in future work.