1 Introduction
Different disciplines can have quite different views about how and why individuals and families behave they way they do. This leads to different ideas about when and how a policy intervention might be required. Policy analyses proceeding from different disciplinary bases may come to quite different conclusions about the effects of policies on families and about how individuals within families behave. The result can be mutual incomprehension, unconstructive argument and poor policies that are not only ineffective but have unintended or even undesirable consequences.
All public policies rest on an implicit view of human nature. Laws designed to change behaviour, for example, are based on a belief that incentives affect decisions. Policies related to the family are based upon ideas about why families exist and how they should be structured. Similarly, policies related to sexual equality assume something about the human nature of males and females. The disciplines explored in this paper each provide a different perspective on the family and offer different insights about why and how people behave the way they do. Other fields, such as political science and religion also have theories of the family.
A truly multidisciplinary approach to policy analysis is rare. Policy analyses conducted by a practitioner of one discipline are seldom informed by other disciplines—each discipline typically proceeds as if no other existed or could be useful. Analyses of the same policy issue, but derived from different disciplines, use different premises, data and methods of analysis to arrive at quite different conclusions, not only about the nature of the problem, but also about the preferred policies and their effects. Policy debate in these circumstances can become acrimonious.
An appreciation of how different disciplines view the family, however, can contribute to a fuller and richer understanding of families. It can help inform policy dialogue and improve the process of policy formulation. It can animate debate by directing critical attention at essential disagreements about the assumptions and methodologies of different disciplines, rather than simply arguing about policy prescriptions.
Communication between disciplines is often limited by the knowledge people have of the analytical framework, methodology, theory and evidence of other bodies of literature. Scholars and analysts tend to identify with a particular discipline and become knowledgeable in a specific area. Each discipline alone can offer important insights for policymakers. However, no single one is likely to provide the definitive policy answer in every case. Different behavioural assumptions tend to favour some policy prescriptions and to rule out others. It is important, therefore, to draw from a number of disciplines and ask what implications each has for explaining family and individual behaviour and analysing the rationale and effects of any policy intervention.
This paper seeks to describe the key features of different theories of the family that arise from different disciplines and to explore whether a multidisciplinary approach could be useful in policy formation. It draws on insights from five disciplines: anthropology, sociology, psychology, economics and biology. A number of questions are addressed in considering the theory of the family expressed in each discipline. What is the underlying explanatory framework? How do families form? How are families structured? How do families and in the individuals within them behave? How are families dissolved? Which behaviour in families is pathological? How have families changed over time? What are the critiques of the theory? What are the implications for policy? The answers to these questions provide an overview of the main features of the theory of the family within each discipline and promote an understanding of their policy implications for families and more broadly, for individuals.
The discussion of each discipline is by no means exhaustive. Many of the finer points are necessarily omitted in a brief summary that concentrates on the relevance of the discipline to the family. Rather, it provides an overview of the principal features of each of these disciplines in explaining how and why families form; how families are structured; how families and the individuals within them behave and make decisions; how and why families are dissolved; how and why people and families behave in ways that are socially undesirable or harmful; and how families respond to change.
Family structures in New Zealand are dominated by the traditions of Western Europe, particularly those of the British Isles, and of Maori society, as discussed in Section 2, which provides the historical and demographic context of the modern New Zealand family. Anthropology and sociology focus on social systems, including the family, rather than on individuals. The anthropological literature discussed in Section 3 provides evidence of the enormous variation that exists in the formation, structure and behaviour of families. The principal theoretical traditions of the sociology of the family, which examines the social causes and consequences of human behaviour in relatively modern, urbanised societies, are presented in Section 4.
Psychology and economics differ from sociology and anthropology in their focus on the individual. Social psychology and developmental psychology, the main theoretical fields of psychology that are relevant to the study of the family, are discussed in Section 5. The economics of the family, which applies economic theory to family issues such as marriage, divorce and fertility, is discussed in Section 6. The evolutionary biology literature focuses on the role of genes and their reproduction in driving human behaviour as discussed in Section 7.
Section 8 discusses the implications of using the insights of different theories of the family for policy-making. Conclusions are presented in Section 9.
