This collection of articles by scholars and policy makers from 14 countries presents multidisciplinary perspectives on the formation of national policy on families. Central topics common to many of the articles include: (1) the differences between policies aimed at affecting the family and policies which have other aims but which do influence the family; (2) national differences in attitudes toward formulating explicit national policies on the family; (3) the interrelationships between family policy and other social concerns such as child rearing, women's rights, population growth, the labor market and society's rights versus individuals' rights; (4) the problem of financing family policies; and (5) the reasons for and against having comprehensive national policies on the family. The articles, each focusing on a single country, are presented in three sections: countries with explicit, comprehensive family policies (France, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Norway, Sweden); countries with explicit but more narrowly focused family policies (Austria, the Federal Republic of Germany, Poland, Finland, Denmark) and countries which have no explicit family policies and which reject such policies (the United Kingdom, Canada, Israel, the United States). Introductory and concluding essays by the editors define the major issues and concepts in the field of family policy. (Author/BH)