Fran Wasoff

Solo-Living, Demographic and Family Change: The Need to know more about men

Solo-living is analytically separate from ‘being single’ and merits separate study. In most Western countries more men are solo-living than women at ages conventionally associated with co-resident partners and children. Discussions of ‘demographic transition’ and change in personal life however typically place women in the vanguard, to the relative neglect of men. We draw on European Social Survey data and relevant qualitative research from Europe and North America demonstrating the need for further research.

Family policy in Scotland

This briefing looks at the development of family policy in Scotland, considers the interplay between devolved and reserved matters, outlines the Departments of the Scottish Executive responsible for family policy, and considers the relationship between childrens and family policy. It is a summary of a document produced with funding from Joseph Rowntree Foundation, looking at the feasibility of a Family Policy Forum in Scotland.

Fertility and social change: the neglected contribution of men's approaches to becoming partners and parents

Attitude survey and interview data are mobilised to address neglect of mens contribution to low fertility and wider social change in families and relationships. Mens attitudes are as relevant as womens to understanding fertility behaviour. However, fertility behaviour can only be understood in the context of a package of changes in gender relations and family life. Data from a random sample of men aged 18–49 surveyed in the Scottish Social Attitudes (SSA) survey 2005/06 are combined with in-depth interviews conducted in 2007 with 75 men aged 25–44 identified through the Scottish Household Survey as not living in co-resident partnership arrangements. Both datasets encompass the age span conventionally associated with having children and men who were the potential partners of women delaying a first child until their 30s. They allow consideration of the impact of social contact with parents and children on mens fertility intentions and how the role of provider features in mens views about parenting. The interviews focus on men who have fallen out of, or have not entered, co-resident partnerships and examine the relationship between partnering and parenting. In combination the data suggest how men act as a complementary or contradictory downward drag on womens fertility and that their role has been underestimated in understanding the package of family change of which low fertility is a part.

Child Contact Centers and Domestic Abuse Victim Safety and the Challenge to Neutrality

Child contact with a nonresident father who has perpetrated domestic abuse has gained policy and research attention. Both feminist social policy and family law research identify the role child contact centers can play in facilitating contact in these circumstances. Drawing from a literature review carried out by the authors, this article examines the priorities that underpin feminist social policy and family law disciplines and how these manifest in research on contact centers and domestic abuse.

Mutual Consent: Separation Agreements and the Outcomes of Private Ordering in Divorce

This article examines the practice of negotiated out‐of‐court settlements in divorce proceedings. Despite being common, such settlements are relatively poorly examined. Here, evidence on the conduct of such settlements in Scotland is explored in an attempt to shed light on the benefits and defects of such agreements. A representative sample of such agreements is considered and evidence from a number of telephone interviews with parties to such agreements adds depth to the analysis.

Public attitudes and law reform: extending the legal framework for child contact to unmarried fathers, grandparents and step-parents?

The demographic transformations of partnership and parenthood present fresh challenges for family law and the rules governing child contact following parental separation are no exception. As children are now more likely to live in non-traditional families and experience family transitions, more kin act as de-facto parents, at least in some respects. Unmarried fathers, grandparents and step-parents are increasingly pressing their claims for extending rights of contact with children after parental separation. Law reformers are said to be sensitive to public attitudes about changing family norms. This paper traces how one European jurisdiction, Scotland, took account of these in relation to child contact in a family law reform process that culminated in the Family Law (Scotland) Act 2006. It compares the direction ultimately taken with public opinion, using evidence from a family attitudes module of the Scottish Social Attitudes survey. Where public attitudes are clear-cut, law reform can move in the direction of social attitudes. But where social attitudes are ambivalent or incompatible with other pressures for reform, they do not offer a steer for the direction of law reform.

Family justice in hard times: can we learn from other jurisdictions?

This paper presents the views of scholars from Australia, Canada, Scotland, France and Sweden on the current working of the Family Justice system in England and Wales, and comparing the experience here with those using the system in their own jurisdiction using vignettes describing a typical divorce and child protection case. The authors identify any special features of their own system which might be of interest here.