Sustainable Family Policy and Demographic Development. Time, Money, and Infrastructure as Elements of a Family Policy Based on Demographic Changes

Family-political conceptions & family policy have changed significantly during the last few years in accordance with a sustainable family policy. The article sketches some of the major aspects of the demographic development of the last 30 years in order to show how, today, a sustainable family policy deals with these developments. Whereas, traditionally, family policy was often conceived of as alternative strategies, namely either as strategies of financial demands linked with specific ways of life or as a policy aiming at the promotion of the expansion of institutional day-care, a sustainable family policy is above all characterized by that these strategies are not conceived of as opposites but, rather, that they are integrated into a third dimension, namely the time for life-long care & for every-day care, so that, through the combination of infrastructure services, financial transfers for families, & a corresponding grading of time within this strategy, not only the demographic changes in relation to the decline in the number of children, but also the changing roles of men & women in our society as well as the higher life expectancy are taken into account. Adapted from the source document.