Balancing acts: Youth, parenting and public policy

This review of legislative provision maps developments in a range of policy areas, including education and training, employment, social security, housing, health, transport, criminal justice, family law, child care legislation and civil law. It examines how different policies define economic and social independence in youth and searches for a parallel set of provisions defining and locating parental responsibility. It finds that different policies often conflict with one another and that parental responsibility is often left implicit. Young people and their parents can thus receive confused and confusing messages about what is expected of them. There is a need for inter-departmental collaboration in policy-making, it concludes.