Bienestar infantil y diversidad familiar. Infancia, parentaldad y políticas públicas en España

Abstract

Recognising family diversity is essential for infant welfare. The composition and internal relations of families have undergone significant changes, and this has particularly been the case in Spain in the last fifty years, where society has moved from a single family model (heterosexual married couple with children) to a variety of ways of cohabiting and a democratisation of relations between men and women and between generations. In the present article we present public policies aimed at children in Spain, with particular focus on those intended to address new family structures. We find that little importance has been attached to child and family policies and that those that have been implemented are very weak. Furthermore, the advances made towards the end of the 20th century with the founding of the welfare state have been eroded by the economic depression and by neoliberal policies of austerity that limit the State’s responsibility and make the family the sole guarantor of child welfare, thus increasing the risk of child poverty. This context offers an explanation for policy makers’ lack of sensitivity towards the new needs generated by new family models.