Family impact analysis is informed by a growing vision of incorporating a family perspective or family impact lens in policy-making (Bogenschneider, et al., 2012; Families Commission, 2005). It examines how policy or legislation may benefit families or produce unintended negative consequences with the intention of maximizing the positive impacts and minimizing the negative impacts. Based on an ecological-systemic perspective (Bogenschneider, et al., 2012; Families Commission, 2005; Law, 2008; Wong, 2010), family impact analysis envisions that policies, legislations, and programs constitute and shape the environmental context in which families function and thus affect family well-being and subsequently affect individual family members’ well-being. The law of divorce is recognized as a social and psychological process, in addition to a legal one. Decisions of the parents and the courts continue to have impacts on the parties concerned years after the legal divorce (Law Reform Commission of Hong Kong, 2005). The most commonly adopted approach in conducting a family impact analysis is a checklist approach. A key step of the checklist approach is the selection of a suitable checklist/checklist questions (Family Impact Institute, 2017). After careful scrutiny, the Family Test of the United Kingdom (Department for Work and Pensions, 2014) provides the most direct and relevant questions that address the family impacts of proposed bill. There are five questions in the test: 1. What kind(s) of impact might the policy have on family formation? 2. What kind(s) of impact will be the policy have on families going through key transitions such as becoming parents, getting married, fostering or adopting, bereavement, redundancy, new caring responsibilities or the onset of a long-term health condition? 3. What impacts will the policy have on all family members’ ability to play a full role in family life, including parenting and other caring responsibilities? 4. How does the policy impact families before, during and after couple separation? 5. How does the policy impact those families most at risk of deterioration of relationship quality and breakdown? These questions are somehow interrelated and overlapped rather than discrete with each other, question 2 to 4 will be combined to facilitate the analysis. The following analysis is based on research evidence on the impacts of similar law reforms in other countries and a few relevant research findings in Hong Kong.
Family impact analysis is informed by a growing vision of incorporating a family perspective or family impact lens in policy-making (Bogenschneider, et al., 2012; Families Commission, 2005). It examines how policy or legislation may benefit families or produce unintended negative consequences with the intention of maximizing the positive impacts and minimizing the negative impacts. Based on an ecological-systemic perspective (Bogenschneider, et al., 2012; Families Commission, 2005; Law, 2008; Wong, 2010), family impact analysis envisions that policies, legislations, and programs constitute and shape the environmental context in which families function and thus affect family well-being and subsequently affect individual family members’ well-being. The law of divorce is recognized as a social and psychological process, in addition to a legal one. Decisions of the parents and the courts continue to have impacts on the parties concerned years after the legal divorce (Law Reform Commission of Hong Kong, 2005). The most commonly adopted approach in conducting a family impact analysis is a checklist approach. A key step of the checklist approach is the selection of a suitable checklist/checklist questions (Family Impact Institute, 2017). After careful scrutiny, the Family Test of the United Kingdom (Department for Work and Pensions, 2014) provides the most direct and relevant questions that address the family impacts of proposed bill. There are five questions in the test: 1. What kind(s) of impact might the policy have on family formation? 2. What kind(s) of impact will be the policy have on families going through key transitions such as becoming parents, getting married, fostering or adopting, bereavement, redundancy, new caring responsibilities or the onset of a long-term health condition? 3. What impacts will the policy have on all family members’ ability to play a full role in family life, including parenting and other caring responsibilities? 4. How does the policy impact families before, during and after couple separation? 5. How does the policy impact those families most at risk of deterioration of relationship quality and breakdown? These questions are somehow interrelated and overlapped rather than discrete with each other, question 2 to 4 will be combined to facilitate the analysis. The following analysis is based on research evidence on the impacts of similar law reforms in other countries and a few relevant research findings in Hong Kong.